Charlie Hebdo fans won’t be able to buy the satirical magazine in North America on Wednesday, and U.S. distribution plans for later in the week remain up in the air.

The French weekly is releasing 1 million copies Wednesday – up from its ordinary 60,000 – a week after the murder of eight staffers by two jihadi gunmen at its Paris office. A further 2 million copies may be printed, depending on demand.

The issue will be printed in several languages and its pre-released cover defiantly features a cartoon of Muhammad, Islam’s central figure. Many Muslims consider depictions of the Islamic prophet offensive, and similar cartoons apparently motivated the religious fanatics who attacked last week.



Charlie Hebdo has since 2006 run a variety of Muhammad caricatures, along with cartoons mocking prominent politicians and other religious figures. It continued to do so after its office was firebombed in 2011. "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!" the men who raided Charlie Hebdo’s office bellowed after killing staffers and before dying in a Friday shootout with police.

The French company MLP distributes Charlie Hebdo and is working with international partners ahead of the magazine's unprecedented worldwide circulation. Reuters reports there were, as of Tuesday morning, requests for at least 300,000 issues from abroad.

Distributors in the U.K. will receive as many as 1,000 copies, The Independent reports. Swiss and Spanish distributors reportedly struck deals to carry the issue as well.



Outside of Europe, distribution plans are less than clear.

An employee for MLP’s Canadian affiliate tells U.S. News they expect to receive the issue on Thursday evening for distribution “about everywhere” in Canada on Friday. However, Michel Salion, a spokesman for MLP, says the issue may arrive later in Canada, on either Friday or Saturday.

Salion and the French affiliate’s employee say U.S. distribution plans have not been finalized.



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When plans are finalized, the magazines are unlikely to be on the shelves of major U.S. bookstore chains.

Mary Ellen Keating, a senior vice president and spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, says, “We don’t carry the magazine and we don’t have plans to carry it.” Keating says that’s unlikely to change.

An employee of the Hudson Group, which operates the Hudson News chain of stores in transportation hubs across the U.S., says it also has no plans to carry the magazine.



“If we get enough requests, perhaps, but as of this time we haven’t, so we’re not going to,” the employee says. She declined to provide her name.

Some American stores, however, would very much like to carry the new Charlie Hebdo issue.

“We are actively and energetically trying to facilitate distribution among our members,” says Dan Cullen, senior strategy officer at the American Booksellers Association, which represents hundreds of independent U.S. booksellers.



Editorial Cartoons About the Charlie Hebdo Murders View All 26 Images