What's an emcee? What's a Corpse?

Emcee is short for MC, which is short for MetaChat. Our collaborative emcees are a type of corpse, or exqusite corpse. The basic premise of a corpse is outlined here, at ExquisiteCorpse.net. Corpsing started out as a party diversion, with people passing around pieces of paper, folded in such a way that the person drawing after them could only see a small slice of the previous drawing.

The basic premise is to make your panel of the corpse integrate as seamlessly as possible with the panel before it, so that you can't tell where one panel ends and one begins. It's a game, a challenge, and an activity, all rolled into one! The best way to understand it is to just try one - no experience necessary.

The first person makes an image 315 pixels wide by 375 pixels high.

The first person saves the 315 x 375 panel, and then cuts off a 15-pixel-wide strip from the right, and saves that too. Both the whole panel and the slice are then emailed to taz. She keeps the panel to contruct the corpse, but sends the slice to the next person.

The next person makes a new panel, 315 pixels wide by 375 pixels high, but starts with the 15-pixel-wide slice from the previous person on the far left of their panel. The slice can be manipulated and changed however you think will best achieve a seamless look, but be sure not to change the leftmost pixels, because the panel of the person before you will be changed as well.

The second person builds out from that strip to create their image.

Then they save their whole panel, and cut their 15 pixel slice, which again are both emailed to taz.

When she begins to construct the emcee, the first and second images side by side would then look something like this:

And so it goes... Until the last person, who begins with the strip they receive, but who makes their panel 300 pixels wide, instead of 315.