More drawing, less working, more thinking

I've gotten a little side job for a few weeks working in a warehouse, and i've been drawing new toons in the time slot i used to sell them. As you can see, my style is changing, and I hope for the better. I am presently looking for the intrinsic "relationship" between characters and the audience. This semi-mystical aspect of the cartoon art is what makes the difference between a series of Family Guy jokes that have little or no relationship to each other or the situation that exists, and a powerful cartoon that creates situational humor not humor of the absurd or the violent. Which is not to say I am above creating humor using the aforesaid methods, but still, I'm searching for something that is a cross between Vaudeville and Mary Worth, The Three Stooges and Pogo. One aspect that is still lacking, but soon to arrive: the higher authority having say over the forlorn hero. How do I engender a "higher authority" over my Judge? I have to be careful to both Maintain his own air of both self-assured over the top foolishness, and his sense of loss and failure, while creating a greater power over him that has personal power as well as legal power. His wife, Maxine, is a good foil, but I'm still searching for that something. As I think of it, i'm envisioning a Supreme Court filled with sour looking creatures. I will do studies of a Supreme Court bench, from internet pictures, and a few weeks from now I will have a Supreme Court episode.