hi Hev,
believe it or not I was just looking for this the other day and came across your post looking for more info. here is a link that I found that would certainly help you:
Creating Brushes in Illustrator CS - Page 1
another feature that would be of help to you in the latest version of illustrator (CS2) is called live trace:
Using the New Live Trace Feature in Illustrator CS2
(about.com just keeps coming up first in google ;-)
you can scan a pen and ink drawing and then illustrator will trace it on the fly and you can color it in using live paint. it works surprisingly well but you will have to play with the settings to get the best tracing.
you can also also try a graphics tablet if the mouse feels a little clunky...
hope this helps,
james