Over at MangaBlog I’ve just learned that VIZ is sponsoring Free Comic Book Day at the gold level (which means their free comic book offering will be available at ALL participating comic book stores). They’re giving away a free mini-issue (32 pages) of Shonen Jump that sports Naruto on the cover (as if we’d expect anything different).

Brigid notes that VIZ was not a sponsor at all last year, and that TOKYOPOP, who was a gold-level sponsor last year, isn’t participating at all this year. Maybe they coordinate this stuff?

Free Comic Book Day is May 3rd this year, and there are other items potentially of interest to manga fans: Del Rey Manga’s Dean Koontz graphic novel, In Odd We Trust, will be in their preview mag; Drawn & Quarterly has a gekiga (”serious pictures,” as opposed to manga, “irresponsible pictures”) sampler with work by Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Seiichi Hayashi.

Also available is a preview of Yen Press’ Maximum Ride, a graphic novel adaptation of James Patterson’s YA novels, and a preview of Rod Espinosa’s slightly manga-inspired Neotopia. Also, I can’t help but notice– the cover for the Nascar Heroes preview is an homage to Speed Racer. (Seriously! Here. It’s at the bottom of the silver comics.)