Despite having an entire year to prepare, the monster 年 (Nian) posted yet another disappointing round of failed attacks on numerous Chinese human settlements last Tueday.

"I trained hard and studied my enemy," Nian commented. "But, in the end, they were ready for me with fireworks, red banners, and lanterns. Man, I hate that stuff, and they know it."

Editor's note: According to tradition, every New Year's Eve, the Nian comes out to devour people and animals. However, on New Year’s Eve 除夕(chuxi), Chinese people put couplets written on red paper up on their gate, hang red lanterns across gate beams, set off fireworks and stay up all night. Since the monster hates the color red, bright lights and firecrackers, he is driven away for another year.

Nian's string of many thousand failures has forced him to re-think his strategy. "I've always been convinced that the night before the Lunar New Year in China was really the ideal attack plan," he insisted. "But you know, maybe I need to switch it up, try something new... god, I haven’t had a bite to eat in ages."

So far, Nian is being secretive about his plans, but an unnamed close associate reports that he's considering attacks on a "plump and juicy" Western hemisphere country sometime in early July.

Shangzilla's not the only monster terrorising his local metropolis. His cousins around the world have been up to their usual antics this week:

* LAzilla was worried about being typecast after getting yet another part in a tired old monster movie franchise
* Gothamzilla went for a quiet night on the town on the Brooklyn Bridge but was shot at by anti-terrorism police.
* Torontozilla said "eh"
* Londonzilla decided to enter the mayoral contest as she thought both of the main candidates were pretty forgettable
* Shangzilla was finding the air smelled of cigarettes
* SFzilla created a Web 2.0 mashup widget RSS generator on Rails
* Phillyzilla had a bad experience when trying to order his cheesesteak in Spanish, so ate Joey Vento.
* Seattlezilla sat in Starbucks for most of the day playing with his new iPod Nanosaurus.

I'm a monster of Reptilian ancestry, in my 300s, ~185m tall and 2350kg, green scaly skin and glowing red eyes. Looking for that special beast for some fun times and maybe more.

It's easy to feel alone in this city, surrounded by millions of humans you can't relate to, wanting to just be yourself, but always feeling the stereotypes that others attach to you. Is there a monster out there who can provide some companionship and a little fun, who can really understand me?

My idea of a perfect first date would start with a walk on both banks of the Huangpu, followed by a climb up the Pearl Tower. Later we'd hit Hongkou for some low-key concrete walkup stomping. I can see us finishing up the night with a snack at the well-populated Xujiahui intersection.

If this sounds good to you, hit me up by telepathy, writing smoke in the sky, or a newsworthy catastrophe. Hope to hear from you soon!

BREAKING NEWS There is panic on the city streets this morning! Pictures (see below) are circulating which appear to show a giant monster attacking downtown Shanghai. Alarmed office workers, many of whom are working an extra day today before the Golden Week, quickly spread the startling photos via QQ and email. We recommend staying indoors, though you might want to run down to Lawson to stock up on some of those Pocky biscuits. Shangzilla likes the white chocolate ones. More when we have it.



Are you in the area? Are you affected by the monstrous events? Send us your images from the scene: contact@shangzilla.com

UPDATE 11.23am The Public Security Bureau have dispatched a team to tackle the monster, although the latest images from the scene suggest they may already be too late to save one of Shanghai’s best loved TV towers, the Oriental Pearl TV tower. Jiangjiang writes "OMG OMG OMG i can see the evil glare in its eyes."




UPDATE 2.58pm Calm is returning to the streets: the shocking imagery which led to the red alert earlier has been found to be a clever fake. Emergency response officer Chen Lianyu explained to a packed press conference "Although the images which were circulating this morning appeared highly realistic, after substantial analysis we suspect they may have been created using a soft toy and a plastic souvenir model. Also we've checked the Pearl Tower, and it still seems to be there".

We are very pleased to announce that Kelvin "Stinky" Doufu, the popular illustrator, will now be drawing exclusive cartoons for Shangzilla.

We hope you'll enjoy his first comic.



Note from the Editor, Mr Doufu went on strike when he discovered that the 50,000 RMB salary we had promised him was an amusing prank, and did not submit the first two panels for publication. We think you'll agree, however, that the punchline is an absolute belter