I would be very careful about creating and selling anything that involves characters, images, storylines, etc. that have been created by other people.

I recommend contacting the person who holds the rights to the thing you want to use in your own creations. Tell them exactly how you’d like to design, use, and package your creations, and if they give you permission, make sure you get it in writing.

I would approach this kind of issue by thinking what I’d want, if I were the person who created the original character, image, story, etc. Would I want other people to use my original works to create things and profit from them, without sharing any of the income with me? Or how would I be willing to work with people who wanted to create things based on my original works?

Even though we see rampant use of licensed characters and other original works all over Etsy, craft shows, etc., that doesn’t mean those vendors have permission from the person who owns the rights to the original work.

And I know that legal and financial penalties can be very high for this type of misuse.

But here’s another way you might proceed with your jewelry items for comic book stores:

Let’s say there’s a popular graphic novel faerie character you want to use in a line of jewelry. Instead of using that exact character, why not use faerie themed elements in your jewelry – such as wings, etc.? People who love the famous graphic novel faerie will most likely like faerie themed things too.