The outreach for this year's Free Comic Book Day, which will be held on July 3, has gained some major marketing support.   Marvel Comics is planning to include a promotion for FCBD on the calendar it provides free to more than two million students aged 6-11 as part of the Summer Reading Challenge program sponsored by Marvel subsidiary, Cover Concepts.  Marvel's acquisition of Cover Concepts (see 'Marvel Extends Its Scholastic Reach') has provided the publisher with an excellent vehicle for reaching the school age demographic -- and the Summer Reading Challenge Calendar is the perfect spot to highlight Free Comic Book Day.  Marvel is including the logo as well as the FCBD URL so kids can go to the Website and learn about the event.

Meanwhile Del Rey, the first mainstream American publisher with a manga line, is not only offering retailers its Del Rey Manga Sampler for a dime (the lowest price of any FCBD edition), the publisher will also promote Free Comic Book Day with stories in its regular newsletter (circ. 40,000+) and on its Website.

America Online will also help promote FCBD through its RED service, which is targeted at teens.  AOL will promote FCBD on the RED service Welcome Screen (1.5 million page views per day) as well as on the Comics & Anime Screen and the Free Stuff Screen (which together average some 20,000 page views per day).