automatic gif formation from list of strings?

[Chris]

I'd like to make 100 gifs for use as web buttons, and they would be
named sequentially from 1900 to 1999.

Seems pretty straightforward:
specify background size and color and then font details (size, color,
alignment), and that's all you need to iterate thru list..  

Is this a good use of python somehow, or does anyone know a better
tool (photoshop,fireworks)?  The best I can do right now is make
1900-1909 by hand in fireworks, and then since FW uses layers and
objects, find&replace all "190" with "191", resave, replace all "191"
with "192", resave,  etc.  Not that bad actually (especially since I
can batch open all 100 then and "replace" color, font, etc before
exporting to gifs), but it seems there might be a better way to make
matching button gifs from a list of *nonpatterned* strings.

Curious,
Chris