Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Letter 'I' - Iceman

After the riches of the letter 'H' we're on slightly different rations for 'I'. I have picked out Iceman, 'ie', Irizarry and Iwao. Virtually every one of these poses an identity issue of one sort or another so there may turn out to be very few entries indeed if my identification is mistaken!

IcemanIceman uses the classic comic style to show typical comic heroes in conflict with typical comic baddies. It's the captivity situations which are atypical! In the pictures which I have collected the hero is young, muscular and handsome whilst the enemy seem barely human except for basic anatomy. The superhero genre is not particularly alluring to me ( although I lusted after Superman in my youth). For this reason I don't claim exhaustive knowledge of this artist (and indeed am not 100% sure that this name is just one artist) but I have shown a couple of his heroes here.

I particularly like The Barbarian tied to his horse, a highly erotic image and not simply because of the novel seating arrangement. The twisted body pose cleverly shows both rear and frontal curves and the artist has used the lightest of shading to turn those curves into voluptuous 3D surfaces. The accessories – gag, gauntlets and thigh boots – throw additional emphasis onto the man's muscular limbs and nudity invoking a high level of sexual interest but without any sense of 'over-egging' the cake. Meanwhile, the minimal but delightfully awkward bondage and the rearing horse create a sense of danger and excitement, the whole picture is full of action.

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As with Fillion's snake picture (see letter F), I marvel at the ability of comic artists like this to use apparently simple techniques to create such powerful, memorable images. Of course the muscular horse, like the sensuous snake, brings his own sexual persona to the party.

In the second picture the effect is not so great, the scene is less convincing, but this is one of a tryptich and the interest lies in the developments from scene to scene which you can probably guess from the clues in picture 1. I like the ripped briefs and chunky boots, reminiscent of moon-boots. The cartoon device of exaggerating the size of certain body parts - like feet – adds a boyish dimension to the character. This has a direct appeal to most people on a subconscious level but in a sexual context can be quite disturbing. Iceman avoids that trap fortunately.

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I don't recommend the web address on the pictures as it seems to have been hijacked. There's a blog at iceman blogger and a selection of his pictures at
http://yaoiai.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=521

For earlier posts in this series click on the A-Z label below