Americans looking to support the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by purchasing one of the reported three million print copies of Wednesday’s issue are likely to be very disappointed.
There will only be 300 copies (in French) of the weekly for sale in the US — and only in major markets, Martin McEwen, executive vice president of LMPI, the title’s exclusive distributor in Canada and the US, told Media Ink.
“I’ve asked for a lot more,” said McEwen, but he is still not sure how many copies will arrive here from the second printing.
“There are 66 million people in France and they’ve sold out 3 million copies,” he said.
Hebdo has already gone back on press for 2 million copies on top of the expanded 1 million-copy press run of this week’s edition.
The American Booksellers Association issued a call for its members to sell copies of the cartoon weekly following last week’s massacre of eight staff members by Muslim extremists.
An English-language digital edition will be available via an app on Thursday. It will cost about 3 euros — currently about $3.50.
Inquiries from the ABA as well as Barnes & Noble and others have poured in, but so far McEwen has not been able to promise copies.
“We are trying to satisfy the people who usually carry French magazines first,” McEwen said.
The issue has a cover cartoon character said to be the Prophet Mohammed with a teardrop coming from his left eye while a headline exclaims, “Tout Est Pardonné” — “All Is Forgiven.”
He is holding a sign that reads: “Je Suis Charlie” — “I am Charlie.”
One of the outlets in the Big Apple that hopes to get some copies of Hebdo is Albertine Books, a French and English bookstore started by the cultural services office of the French Embassy less than a year ago.
“I hope we will have some by the end of the week, but we are not sure,” Francois Xavier Schmit, Albertine’s manager, told Media Ink Tuesday afternoon.
Two chilly NYPD officers stood guard outside the store on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Farther down the block, a makeshift shrine was growing outside the French Consulate with flowers, Mass cards — and, of course, the ever-present NYPD patrol out front.
Albertine said it carried books by two of the people killed when Islamist extremists broke into the office on Jan. 7.
The books, one by the cartoonist Jean Cabut, who wrote “Cabu New York,” and the second, by Bernard Maris, an economist and shareholder in Charlie Hebdo. Maris once wrote under the pen name “Oncle Bernard.”
Both books quickly sold out of their few copies.
The best bet for consumers in North America looking to track down a copy might be try to score a copy via someone in Canada, but even that will not be easy.
“There are 1,500 copies coming into Canada; most of them will be distributed in the Montreal area,” said McEwen.
Emmanuel Saint-Martin runs the digital French Morning magazine in the US and has been helping Charlie Hebdo negotiate the ins and outs of the market here.
“It will be available digitally in three languages — English, Spanish and Arabic,” he said, noting that there is also a possibility of a Chinese-language version.
“They are not going to print an English-language version,” Saint-Martin said, although he conceded that there is a chance that will change.
Martin said the weekly has been approached by some newspapers willing to print and distribute the magazine, which is printed on non-glossy newsprint.
The Society of Professional Journalists called the attack on the satirical weekly “a barbaric, appalling attempt to stifle press freedom,” according to a statement released by its president, Dana Neuts, on the day of the first attack.
“Extremists feel emboldened to attack and kill journalists anywhere in the world for lampooning religion or reporting on political and governmental activities. Such outrageous attempts to silence journalists will not be tolerated or successful.
“Journalists around the world work every day to report truth, enlighten the public and encourage people to think about all sides of issues important to society,” Neuts said.
“This type of attack on such a basic human right — freedom of speech — is heinous and unacceptable,” she added.. “We urge other journalists and media organizations to stand in solidarity against this outrageous attack on press freedoms.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported last week’s massacre is the worst attack on the media since the 2009 Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines.
In 2014 alone, CPJ reports, 61 journalists were killed worldwide, including 27 who were murdered.