Rolling Stone sales doubled for issue featuring Boston bomber

So much for a boycott.

Sales doubled for Rolling Stone’s controversial July issue featuring Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston bomber.

The issue sold 13,332 copies since July 19 at 1,420 retail stores -- nearly double the magazine’s 52-week average of 6,541, according to MagNet, a magazine sales tracker.

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July’s cover featured a self-portrait of Tsarnaev with the headline: “The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster.”

Rolling Stone quickly came under fire by critics, who included Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who said the cover glamorized a man accused of setting off two pressure-cooker bombs in April that killed three and injured more than 260 others at the Boston Marathon.

Drugstore and supermarket chains such as Walgreens and Stop & Shop all announced they would not be selling the issue.

Magazine editors defended their cover, saying in a statement that the story “falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues.”

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ricardo.lopez@latimes.com