Free Comic Book Day, slated for May 3, 2003, just keeps getting better and better.  Gemstone Publishing has announced that it will be reprinting a shoe store giveaway comic from the 1950s that featured the classic Carl Barks story, 'Maharajah Donald.'  Gemstone, which recently acquired the rights to Disney comics (see 'Interview With Steve Geppi on Gemstone Disney Comics'), is launching its new line of Disney comics in June, so Free Comic Book Day should provide the company with a perfect launching pad. 

Original editions of the Barks shoe store giveaway comic are listed with a value of over $7,000 in the current edition of the Overstreet Price Guide.  But more important than providing Barks collectors with a classy reprint of this wonderful story, this Donald Duck adventure should, with any luck, open the eyes of thousands of kids to the joys of reading comics and bolster an already stalwart list of free comics that should make this Free Comic Book Day even better than the last one (see 'FCBD -- Bigger and Better Than Ever').