Texas Monthly cheesed off at RI Monthly

City mags put a lot of emphasis on their covers -- with such familiar staples as attractive models, actors, and the like -- to encourage newsstand and checkout sales. Now, though, as the cleaver waits to fall on the first high-end steak joint to accept that Providence isn't a big expense-account town, an editor at Texas Monthly is accusing the Belo-owned Rhode Island Monthly of swiping a meaty cover concept (h/t Romenesko).

From TexasMonthly.com:

Some of you may be aware of a two-plus-year-old dust-up between TEXAS MONTHLY and Boston Magazine over a purloined cover concept. In February 2005, we put Tom Craddick on the cover of our "Power" issue, only to discover, a few months later, that our neighbors to the far northeast did a clumsy job of ripping off our design. (The cover subject for their "Power" issue was Mitt Romney. Hey, how'd that work out for you?) Now comes this: Rhode Island Monthly's February 2008 issue on steak. Look familiar? The art director of that fine publication has a future. Elsewhere in New England.

Update: Here's what the editor of Rhode Island Monthly, Sarah Francis, just emailed me:

Oh Evan - put a photo of a steak on the cover because we have a steak feature inside? We never could have thought of that ourselves!! You guys are so smart!