Jan. 15--A precious few Charlie Hebdo magazines are making their way to Chicago, perhaps as soon next week.
Montreal-based distributor LMPI is obtaining about 300 copies of the magazine to send to several U.S. cities, spokesman Martin McEwen said. City Newsstand in Chicago's Old Irving Park neighborhood and Chicago-Main Newsstand in Evanston plan to sell the copies.
Chicago-Main manager Eric Ismond said Thursday that he is expecting LMPI to send copies to both newsstands, but how many and when has yet to be determined.
"Once they package them up and ship them out, they have to go through customs, so it's hard to say exactly how long it's going to take," Ismond said. "Next week sometime is the earliest I'm expecting them."
Whatever copies come in will be sold first-come, first-served, and likely limited to one copy per customer, he said. Both newsstands, known for their wide selection of international publications, once carried Charlie Hebdo on their shelves, but it has not been distributed in the U.S for several years, Ismond said.
"Our policy is to try to carry everything that's available," he said. "We knew there'd be a lot of interest in this."
The satirical publication has seen unprecedented demand since the Jan. 7 terrorist attacks in which armed gunmen stormed the magazine'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.
Wednesday's cover, designed by surviving cartoonist Luz, again shows Muhammad with a single tear falling down his face and holding a sign reading "Je suis Charlie," echoing the popular rallying cry from those condemning the attacks. Above him on a green backdrop are the words, "Tout est pardonne," or "All is forgiven."
Three million copies of Charlie Hebdo's special edition, also called the survivors' edition, were printed in more than a dozen languages to be sold worldwide. Normally the publisher prints about 60,000 copies, according to news reports. Copies were sold out in Paris within minutes of Wednesday's release.
McEwen said LMPI is trying to obtain more copies. Besides Chicago, the first shipment of magazines also is scheduled to go to Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, San Francisco and a few other areas.
"Based on the number of copies we receive in a secondary order, we expect this footprint would grow," McEwen said. "Demand is simply dwarfing supply at this point."
Charlie Hebdo is among the list of foreign publications the company distributes throughout Canada, but it is not usually sent south of the border. According to the LMPI website, the magazine sells for $5.45 in Canadian dollars -- or $4.58 U.S. -- but it is not yet clear how much this edition will cost.
"It's a remarkable situation, to be honest," McEwen said. "While we are accustomed to significant media events increasing demand, it's usually for magazines that already have a reasonable presence in the market. For a niche title like Charlie Hebdo to be generating so much demand is rarely seen."
cdrhodes@tribpub.com
@rhodes_dawn
