Here’s an amusing relic from my magazine collection. What the hell is Colin Powell doing in there? Why is he slumming at the cyber party?

Virtual City existed for maybe three or four issues in 1995 and 1996. It had some sort of relationship to Newsweek; I think Newsweek was an advisor and investor. I wrote a bunch of site summaries for an issue or two, back when I was first starting to freelance for magazines.

Despite the incredibly embarrassing cover of the premiere issue, above, and despite the stench emanating from columns written by the short-fingered vulgarian Jason McCabe Calacanis, Virtual City could actually have been much worse. Less forgiving people would have no trouble finding snark fodder within its pages. But from where I sit, it’s clear that Virtual City was put together by editorial and design pros who knew how to create a magazine for a specific niche audience, even if what they created didn’t end up working, and even if the whole thing seems kind of amusing 10 years later.

From its emphasis on reviews and culture-oriented service pieces down to its use of Bureau Grotesque for most of its display type, Virtual City was blatantly modeled on Entertainment Weekly. It was obviously conceived to be the E.W. of the, um, “cyber” world. (Now there’s a word we don’t hear very often these days, thank god.) The magazine’s boosterish tone is a quaint reminder of what things were like back then, almost a decade ago, a mere year or two after the web became the Next Big Thing. Other contributors to the premiere issue: Ben Stein, Nikki Finke, Douglas Rushkoff, Scott Rosenberg. Here’s an excerpt from the editors’ letter, which is signed by Jonathan Sacks, the publisher and editorial director, and Lewis D’Vorkin, the editor-in-chief:

Consider this: On an average day almost anywhere in the world, you can connect by computer to the greatest minds in science, world-class comedians or experts on medieval art. You can phone home from 32,000 feet above Yosemite or from your tractor in the middle of 100 acres of Iowa corn. You can hang out online with Michael Jackson or Michael Milken. You can find a crowd of people who, like you, collect 18th-century thumbtacks. You can make out.

Technology is redefining how you make friends, how you communicate, what you know and who you are. It’s the foundation of the Virtual City.

With a computer hooked to a telephone line you can move right in. The Virtual City is a distinctly human place, rich with culture, with opportunity, with things to do and people to see. It’s as glamorous as the Miracle Mile and as perilous as a deserted alley, teeming with winners and losers, lovers and haters, geniuses and fools. Take the right turn and you find the Louvre. Take the wrong turn and you land in a place where thugs steal your credit cards. It’s the place where Rush Limbaugh found a wife and Tom Clancy lost one.

Toward the end, the editors’ letter also contains this hilarious sentence, which I assure you is not taken out of context:

This premiere issue of Virtual City is the work of a team of magazine editors, writers and business people.

Really? A team of editors, writers, and business people? You don’t say!