Sulgoth said:
Your best bet for a cheap option is a scanner and paper to do outlines in and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)just do the outlines on paper and then scan it into GIMP, from there you just need to add a layer on top of the outlines to dark line and a layer on top of that to color (and another layer and another, and another, trust me, layer's will be your life if you get into making comics.)
If you're just tracing lineart, why not go all vector and use Inkscape?
Gimp and Inkscape are both free, by the way. I'd suggest going through a few tutorials of each and get to know them better.
Also, for hardware, I can't help but reccomend these for the incredible price: Monoprice tablets [http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841]
I'm currently using one myself, and its not the
nicest tablet in the world, it does its job, and well.
I've used a few of the tablets in the under $100 price range, and have experimented with friends' and my old colleges' tablets, and in my experience, these are your best bets if you don't want to put down a significant initial investment.
As for size, I got a large one because I draw with my entire arm, but with tablets in general, size isn't that much of an issue because you are constantly moving the screen and adjusting the zoom of your image on your monitor. 4"x3" is a bit too small in my opinion, but it is servicable.
Still, a scanner isn't a bad idea; it took me quite a while to get used to a tablet and I would trace paper sketches at first.