I wondering about it too. It seemed to kind of come out of left field.
OK, I really don’t get the one with the milk. What? 
It says it’s a re-drawing of an old comic but I don’t remember what storyline it was a part of.
The girl is Martin’s old girlfriend who got him to move out there and then dumped him suddenly (or something like that)
Marten recognizes a customer at Coffee of Doom as the girl friend he moved to Boston with, who dumped him shortly after they arrived from California. Faye takes exception to this, and dumps a gallon of milk on her.
Some old ex-GF of Marten’s who had dumped him and broken his heart. Faye does her usual violent hit, punch, throw shtick that would get her arrested and thrown in jail IRL
1,2,3 Jinx! you owe me a Coke.
To make it more confusing, Jacques redrew the girl so she now looks like Cosette.
But for those of you who like clicking links, here’s the original and redrawn versions.
Ahhh. Thanks for the link!
SPECIALS
Nothing today, jerks
Heh.
Faye in panel #2 of the re-drawn comic is brilliant. Jeph has improved quite a bit from the old days. I’ll think I’ll be picking up that book of his.
This is an absolutely unimpeachable truth. It always jolts me to go back and look at the early archive because I’m so used to the current models that my brain substitutes them into the early strips when I remember them.
*And not just for this comic. There are several whose archives are a shock…Something Positive, for one. The improvements are so gradual that you don’t even notice they happened until you look at the old strips.
I like that it’s almost an offhand reference - it fits well with the slice of life, average-person focus of the comic. I mean, naturally such a titanic event is going to provoke some discussion, but given that Marten et al aren’t exactly in a position to influence global technology development and geopolitics, it makes sense that the Friendly Singularity isn’t necessarily going to become a major plot point in the comic. Just another bit of World News that adds some crazy to the setting.
IOW, one comic where the characters briefly worry about the ramifications of the Singularity and then wander off into a tangent about the dolphin patriarchy is pretty much what I would have expected given this cast of characters. 
I agree with Tanbarkie. Don’t think of it as Jeph setting up a long term Singularity plot, but rather him setting up a very short term dolphin rape joke.
In today’s strip, who is that girl on the right in the last panel? With the purple hair? I’ve only been reading the comic for about two months but I don’t recognize her.
And the author who just asked out Mari is a new character too, right?
The girl with the purple hair is Dora - Marten’s girlfriend and owner of the coffee shop. The author is Marten’s boss at the library, Tai.
More to the point of this particular strip, Marten’s lesbian boss at the library, Tai.
Definitely Dora, though Jeph drew her kind of weird today. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to read that expression as “thinks it’s cute and hopes those two crazy kids fall in love” or “thinks it’s funny and doesn’t want to spoil the joke” or “hates one of those two and we’re not sure which so she’s enjoying the schadenfreude of an awkward ‘first date’”.
It is ADORABLE and EVIL and she can’t wait to see the crazy.
I interpret it as ‘she thinks it’s both a hilariously awkward situation and a turn-on’. She’s bi herself … the thought of these two girls getting into (possible mis)understandings, sexual-innuendo style, over slashy fanfic, probably brightens her day.