City Paper Is Looking Kinda Metro This Week

Hey, remember when Metro bought City Paper? You probably will when you see this week’s cover.

Aside from the resemblance to Metro’s design sensibility, the cover leads inside to a somewhat out-of-character Buzzfeed-style list of “25 things you must know about Philly’s cutest quarterback.”

Like we say: This doesn’t feel like the City Paper we know and love. (To be fair, there’s also some good, hard-hitting journalism in the latest issue.) It’s a joke, right?

Right, says editor-in-chief Lillian Swanson.

“The whole thing is tongue-in-cheek,” she said. “I hope that comes across. We were making fun of teen magazines — that was our prototype. We looked at teen magazines and how they gush over people. Based on that, we started looking at Nick Foles that way.”

She added: “We were having fun. You know what? We get to have fun once in a while.”

So don’t worry, City Paper fans. This week’s cover doesn’t portend a change in direction for the venerable alt weekly under Metro’s ownership.

“They bought us because we’re distinctly different,” Swanson said. “And everything I’ve seen so far, we’re going to stay distinctly different.”