Score Free Manga on May 3: Free Comic Book Day

Okay, with this, it's official. Manga readers, with so much going on out there, you have no excuse to stay at home all day on Saturday. On top of all the fun out in New York and San Francisco, on May 3, it's Free Comic Book Day.

All you have to do is find your local participating comic shop, and head on in to pick up your free comics. For manga readers, there are three offerings worth seeking out and picking up:

• Shonen Jump Sampler - VIZ Media is offering a 32-page comic featuring stories from Naruto, Bleach and Slam Dunk, plus intros to other manga series featured in monthly Shonen Jump magazine.
• Maximum Ride Manga - Yen Press is giving readers an advance peek at the manga adaptation of James Patterson's Maximum Ride, which will debut in the pages of Yen Plus magazine in July 2008.
• Drawn & Quarterly Gekiga Sampler - Drawn & Quarterly is representing the artistic edge of manga with its gekiga (dramatic pictures) sampler. Similar to indie / underground comics, gekiga is more visually and thematically sophisticated than your usual shonen / shojo fare. But if you're ready to explore other avenues of manga expression, pick this one up and get a taste of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Good-Bye and Seiichi Hayashi’s Red Colored Elegy, two stories from early '70s that will be released in full-length graphic novel format in July 2008.

Quantities of these books are limited, so go early for best selection of the goodies. See the rest of the free comics up for grabs on Saturday.

© Masashi Kishimoto / Shueisha / VIZ Media LLC