I'm new at flash but I'm eager to get into animation. =)

I want to animate a character. Just wondering if it's easy to draw a character on paper, scan it, render it and animate. I've looked up tutorials and noticed people usually draw a character directly in the computer using a mouse or tablet.

Is it possible to scan characters from paper and still manage to easily animate them? or is it advisable that I learn to draw using mouse/tablet? Perhaps I can use a combination of both.

Thanks in advance. =)