Great way to make your sprites:
http://www.synfig.org/cms/
industrial strength, for free <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">
this thing seems very very interesting.
too unstable, horrible interface
Develop games in your browser. Powerful, performant & highly capable.
I must agree with this for the windows version. They really let it go in the last few updates. Only really worth it if you use Linux.
I have been using Inkscape + blender lately.