The French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, published in the wake of a deadly attack on the weekly's headquarters, went on sale in Chicago and Evanston on Friday morning-and quickly sold.
When the Chicago-Main newsstand opened at 7 a.m., roughly 40 people had lined up and five minutes later all six copies of the publication, which features a controversial image of the Prophet Muhammed, had been snapped up.
It was virtually the same scenario in Portage Park where City Newsstand, a sister newsstand to the Evanston location, where about 25 people were lined up by the 7 a.m. opening and the six copies on hand there were purchased in a manner of minutes, according to an employee there. The newspaper was selling for $7.50 apiece at the newsstands.
Jean SmilingCoyote, of Chicago's West Ridge neighborhood, nabbed the first copy of the publication at the Main-Chicago Newsstand, near the Main Street CTA Purple Line station.
"I didn't go to sleep. I came at 10 last night and I came to check every two hours. At 4 a.m., I decided to stay out here," she told RedEye.
Hans Eric Riddersholm, 56, of Evanston, barely slept-all because he was anticipating getting to the suburban newsstand to pick up what he called "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."
Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith, 62, of Rogers Park, who was carrying a sign that said "Cartoonists Against Crime," snagged one of the precious few copies and said she would likely use special archival materials to save the publication. She said she hopes to one day travel to France with it to get it autographed by some of it's creators.
Francis Bedoya, 25, and his mother, Sandra Schieber, 59, both of Des Plaines, weren't able to get a copy of the newspaper Friday, but put their names on a reserve list; more copies of the newspaper are expected to arrive in the Chicago-area next week.
"I like the whole message it represents," Bedoya said, explaining why he wanted his own copy of the paper. "Freedom of speech and strength in numbers."
Just 300 copies of the publication were distributed to the U.S. this week by LMPI, the Canadian magazine distributor that delivered Charlie Hebdo to the City Newsstands, according to Eric Ismond, the Main-Chicago Newsstand manager. The satirical weekly has a typical circulation of about 60,000 in France, but had a special run last week of 3 million copies, according to the Associated Press, due to international demand for it.
The cover image has sparked controversy and some violence around the world, according to news reports. This edition is the most recent to reach the U.S., where it is typically only distributed to booksellers and newsstands in rare instances.
Some survivors of the deadly attack among the editorial staff produced the newspaper.