French weekly Charlie Hebdo finally went on sale in New York City bookstores with copies flying off shelves nearly as fast as they did in France last week.
Book Culture on Columbus Avenue sold out 100 copies of the latest edition priced at $6 a pop within a few hours on Sunday.
“We got 100 copies at about 5 p.m. on Sunday and they were gone by 7:45 p.m.,” said owner Chris Doeblin.
The issue, featuring a cartoon of a weeping Prophet Mohammed holding a sign that reads “Je Suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), was the first since the deadly attack by Muslim gunmen that left eight magazine staffers dead.
Albertine, the Upper East Side bookstore affiliated with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, said the 100 copies that went on sale at 11 a.m. on Tuesday were selling briskly.
“All proceeds will go to the victims of the families,” said Judith Walker, a Cultural Services spokeswoman.
The bookstore’s recorded message said copies were being sold on a first-come, first-served basis and each patron was limited to one.
McNally Jackson Bookstore on Prince Street also received 100 copies over the weekend. They were all gone by 11 a.m. Monday.
“It took five or six hours and they were gone,” said Roger Pantano, a store manager.
The three stores received their copies via Unipresse, which ordinarily markets subscriptions to French publications.
Catherine Lamy, who heads Unipresse in the US, said Air France flew the copies over for free and that she personally picked them up at Kennedy Airport and distributed them to the bookstores.
Lamy said it was a one-time event and that she was not going to be able to import any other issues after this shipment.
Montreal-based distributor LMPI, which imports foreign language publications including Charlie Hebdo, said it distributed about 900 copies to cities across the US but was concentrating on supplying stories that normally sold French-language periodicals.
Another 1,600 copies were being distributed in Canada, primarily in Montreal and Quebec.
The 5 million copies of Charlie Hebdo that went on sale in France sold out within minutes as people flocked to newsstands to show their support for the publication.
