Animations Using Flash!

[crackafaza]

Hi all you flash gurus!
Right, here it goes!
I love drawing cartoon characters in my spare time, and I want to make them come to life, so thought best way would be to animate them using flash, but thing is, I only really know the basics of flash, but want to know more, because eventually want to make lil episodes.

So my questions are:
1)Are there any good websites out there that can help me do this?
2)What is the best book that would help not only with flash, but integrated into cartooning aswell!
and finally
3)I am guessing it would be easier if you had a graphics pad, saves scanning in and traceing image and so on, so would it be worth my while getting a graphics pad?

Any help with any of the questions would be much appreciated
Thanks alot

Cracka

[Sgaspar11]

Graphics pads can help out....

The best palce to get information/tutorials on character animation would be:

www.cartoonsmart.com

Justin has tons of videos to download and watch (some cost money) around keyframe and character animation.

If you are worried about money, to buy these videos, I would like to remind you of the flash competition currently running, where 1st prize wins $100.00 to www.cartsoonsmart.com.

Competition Link:
A New Competition! (UPDATED)

Cheers,

Scott