Spent an evening with classic American shorts and a notebook. The thing that keeps jumping out: they draw so much less than I do. Three lines where I'd put twelve, and the gag lands harder.
It's not minimalism for style points — it's that every line had to earn its place when everything was hand-inked. Trying to steal that discipline for game art too: if a detail doesn't change the read, it's noise. Delete bravely, redraw once.