I, uh, actually wasn't sure what to title this as. I'm bad with explanations and fairly new to cons (and quite new to this Guild), so let's see what I can get here..

My friend and I plan on purchasing an AA table at Youmacon'10. The problem is, we're worried about trying to sell certain things due to copyright issues.

First: I saw plenty of fan art and other anime items around in the AA. Obviously they should be okay to sell so long as you don't "claim the characters as your own" so to speak. But are there any other prerequisites for being able to sell things such as fan art or items featuring copyrighted characters/logos?

Second: My friend and I have been writing a story/manga for a few years now and we'd love to get it "out there"... But we don't want to go through the deal of publishing a first volume if we have to worry about random people stealing our story ideas due to us not having them copyrighted. Is this something to be cautious about?

Thanks in advance for any help anyone might have. ^-^