Well, the Fry subplot was partially a continuation of the joke from The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz ("She even let me sit in her lap and steer...in this comic I drew"), partially the writers adding a character trait of Fry's they'd initially considered, but then dropped (they mention in the commentary for Birdbot that one of Fry's traits in the show's conceptual phase was that he was always going to be drawing crude comics - but then decided it was better that he only do it occasionally), and partially a knock on bad fancomics they've probably seen at cons. But mostly, it was just a plot device to get the main characters to Comic-Con, thus facilitating their run-in with Lrr.
And yeah, Maurice is The Scary Door guy.
I love that not all the episodes have been focused on Fry. They haven't forgotten him, but it's great to see the other characters get some more development. Honestly, who would've expected Scruffy to get this much character development?