Sold out: Latest Charlie Hebdo

THE FIRST copies of the “survivors’ edition” of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo sold out within minutes of hitting newsstands across France this morning.

Kiosk owners in Paris reported people were queueing to buy a copy by the time they opened up. One told AFP: “It was incredible. I had a queue of 60 to 70 people waiting when I opened. I've never seen anything like it. All my 450 copies were sold out in 15 minutes."

Some newsstands were limiting buyers to one copy each, and had refused to accept pre-orders, as the first deliveries of copies of the magazine flew out of the door.

La queue au kiosque.... #jesuischarlie pic.twitter.com/RJCjM0bhtA— Laurent Valdiguié (@Valdiguie) January 14, 2015

The news comes as AFP reports that the print run for the magazine has been upped to 5million copies, from the originally planned 3million. The edition is available in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Turkish.

A normal run of Charlie Hebdo is 60,000.

Copies have already appeared on auction site eBay, with bidders on one listing already offering £760, plus £3.20 postage, for a copy of the UK version of magazine by 9.30am, with nearly five hours left to bid.

The cover price in newsagents is €3. For this edition it has been reported that newsagents and distributors are donating their share of proceeds from the sale of the magazine to victims' families.

Would-be readers were documenting the rush for copies at kiosks across France on Twitter:

#CharlieHebdo "En 10 minutes, on a écoulé tout notre stock", Sarah tient un kiosque à la station Auber pic.twitter.com/86V3rzUNGZ— Mathilde Golla (@Mathgolla) January 14, 2015

Ce matin à #nice06, la queue pour #charliehebdo @Nice_Matin pic.twitter.com/i0gqXasF9f— jeanpik (@jeanpik06) January 14, 2015

30m de file d'attente à Alésia : "Revenez demain, 1 seul exemplaire par personne!", crie la kiosquière. #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/KaQrXQTN0f— Elisa Pn (@ElisaPineau) January 14, 2015

5h20 ce mercredi : plus aucun #CharlieHebdo au kiosque de la gare de #Nantes. Les 106 exemplaires sont partis en 5' pic.twitter.com/PI2nn5im0O— FranceBleuLoireOcéan (@bleuloireocean) January 14, 2015

The issue, the first to be published since last week's terror attack, features an image of a tearful Prophet Mohammed holding a 'Je suis Charlie' sign beneath the words: "All is forgiven".

At an emotional press conference yesterday, the cartoonist Luz, who drew the cover art, said: “I have no worries about the cover. We have confidence in people’s intelligence and we have confidence in humour. The people who carried out this attack, they have no sense of humour.

“I’m sorry we’ve drawn him yet again, but the Muhammad we’ve drawn is a man who is crying.”

Explaining how he came up with the idea, he said: “I summoned all the talent of those who weren’t there and all those who were. We said: ‘We have to have a drawing that makes people laugh’.

“There was this idea to draw this character ... I looked, he was crying; then I wrote “all is forgiven”; then I cried.

“It was the front cover. It wasn’t the one that the world wanted us to do, or the terrorists, but it was ours.”

Photo: Mathilde Golla / Twitter