lol at 3rd panel - Kind of tricky though, 3 new ones were added for a total of 7 characters in each of the 3 panels. Is 21 the new record for # of characters in one strip?

21 - As far as you can call the Cloonies characters...

But yes, by far the most # of characters per panel and comic.

Cloonies's color, how were they chosen? Do they have a pattern or just random ones?

Actuallly - It's definitely not random, they're in an RGB circle. Red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple.