Kat says:

Joe does not look convinced that everything is, indeed, fine. Cal and Giska are talking on an ear piece. The Crew have a pretty solid communications arrangement, courtesy of Cal. He's the security guy, after all... but you'll hear more about Scope Security later. For now, know that they are not psychic. That is some kind of earpiece thing going on there, sure enough.

James says:

Kat was laughing at the expressions on this page, and I guess they are pretty strong. Krelle is channeling Nancy Drew up in the corner and Joe's got the whole "Well something about this whole situation ain't on the level." I kind of want to avoid thought bubbles unless absolutely necessary. I'd much rather draw Joe looking suspicious than have a bunch of neutral expressions and a wall of thought bubbles explaining what's going on. I'll use them for inner monologue stuff, or when necessary for plot exposition, but I am a firm believer in "show, don't tell". I tend to go whole hog on the emotions just because that is how I learned in animation: You've only got 1/12th of a second to process each drawing, so if you were going to make a character suspicious, they had to be SUPER suspicious.

Kat replies:

I think that strong expression work well in webcomics too. Most people only spend a few seconds looking at each panel so it's important to make everything clear. I'm also not a huge fan of casual thought bubbles - people don't generally think in long sentences like that unless they're trying to puzzle something out. I think they're useful for exposition SOMETIMES - if you really can't avoid it - or for showing a thought that the character is trying to hide with their words and expression. (Krelle thinks "Holy crap it's that guy I spied on!" while smiling and saying "Nice to meet you.")