Nah, I've talked to a few illustrators now and the pen tool is rarely used during pure illustration. Mostly the pencil tool is used it seems. Also a good WACOM tablet (not BAMBOO) is the way to go. There is a learning curve alibiet, however, Illustrator is not the best program to use for illustration. Don't get me wrong, I love the program and use it a lot during real designing but when it comes to drawing for giggles it's a pita.
I have one new strip but it's political and slightly offensive... I'll have to make another one soon. I do have these little guys though that I'm using at another site.
I also made this today for fun, this was with the pencil tool to start and then shapes were combined and fine tuning was completed with the pen tool.