Jan. 23--A dozen copies of Charlie Hebdo's post-attack edition landed on Chicago-area shelves at 7 a.m. Friday and were gone quickly, according to Eric Ismond, who manages the Chicago-Main Newsstand in Evanston.
Ismond said that when he showed up to work at 6 a.m., an hour before the newsstand opens, there were about a dozen people lined up outside for the six copies available there. Another six copies were sold just as quickly at City Newsstand in Chicago's Old Irving Park neighborhood, he said.
"We sold out within minutes," Ismond said.
Among those waiting in line when Ismond arrived was Hans Eric Riddersholm, 56, of Evanston. He said he barely slept the night before because he was anticipating getting to the newsstand to pick up "a piece of history." So he finally got up and headed to the newsstand, arriving at 4:45 a.m.
"I really couldn't fall asleep that well because I was thinking about coming," said Riddersholm, who said he is a regular newsstand customer. "It's a piece of history. I have three sons, they want to take a look at it."
The newsstands anticipate they will receive roughly 200 more copies each by next Friday and are taking paid reservations for the publication. As of Friday morning, the reservations for the $9.99 edition had to be made in person, but Ismond said staff may take phone reservations if lines dissipate. They are cutting reservations off at 120 at each location, he said.
As of 8 a.m., the Evanston location had taken 50 reservations, he said.
"When things calm down a little bit, we could probably take reservations over the phone," Ismond said.
The French satirical newspaper has seen unprecedented demand since the Jan. 7 terrorist attacks in which armed gunmen stormed the publication's offices in Paris and killed 12 people. Authorities said the shooters carried out the siege in retaliation for the weekly's frequent cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, something Muslims consider blasphemous.
The following week, the surviving staff published another edition that had a cover again showing Muhammad. This time the prophet had a single tear falling down his face and he was holding a sign reading "Je suis Charlie," French for "I am Charlie," echoing the popular rallying cry from those condemning the attacks. Above him on a green backdrop were the words, "Tout est pardonne," or "All is forgiven."
Three million copies of the special edition, called the survivors' edition, were printed in more than a dozen languages to be sold worldwide. Typically the publisher prints about 60,000, according to news reports. Copies were sold out in Paris within minutes of their release.
Rachel Cromidas contributed.
cdizikes@tribpub.com
