Sk-etchbook

Not that Flash! The other one.
I'm still religiously, like a nun on a bucking bronko working my way though Actionscript 2.0. I have numerous books on the go at the moment some better than others, one worth mentioning is Flash Hacks. It's old and it's not an intro book, you need be familiar with the software and some familiarity with Actionscript helps but it covers a wide range of more complicated effects. It's an old book but deffinitly worth looking at.

It also recommends some other software which can be used to create characters to be animated. I've not heard of these before, Poser is one it mentions and when I checked out the website http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/graphics.html there are quite a few bits of interesting looking software.