To my readers......

SITE UPDATE NOTICE

Thanks for visiting mitchmen, home of Mitchell's Gay Art

The Caps and Collars/ Flat Cap Gang story at Google Groups is on a summer break until July. (see Group News for link)

Message updated 25th June 2023

Thursday 31 January 2019

Beautifully Bound - Seamus O'Reilly

Seamus O'Reilly seems to have become resident 'ginge' at Bound Gods, taking over from the wicked Luke Riley (whose kidnap scene with Phenix Saint in Hicksville still stirs the juices).


O'Reilly's lean frame seems too fragile for S&M torment but is beautifully showcased by this bondage package. I've been a fan of doubled back leg restraint ever since my first sight of it (in My Initiation). The multiple windings employed here add artistic emphasis to the immobilisation and are nicely complemented by the compact chest and wrist combo on the upper body. This boy ain't goin' anywhere and he is forced to kneel submissively, acknowledging that situation.


The blurred movement of the lash and O'Reilly's anguished expression conveys a tale of unwanted punishment. This model's lightness of build suggests innocence but his impressive 'cock in a sling' seems to tell a different story, even if it does seem to be flinching away from the blows.



At one time the prisoner incarcerated for years on end, hanging by chains against a wall was a favourite subject for tabloid cartoonists. The prisoner's predicament here doesn't seem that funny but the simplicity of this spreadeagled restraint - naked of course against the cold, bare, brick wall - seems to accentuate his utter vulnerability.

 This is the only picture in this article where Seamus is gagged and given the grip of iron on his balls perhaps he needs it. The atmospheric photography makes his pubes look as if they are on fire.


This wouldn't normally be my idea of 'beautifully bound', there's too much clutter. However this shot does bring out O'Reilly's natural beauty, showing us a sweet face and impressive thighs, etc.  His ginger pubes are drawn down into a useful arrow shape telling you where to look. The ankle binding is another nice detail.

The restraint chair itself is neat, it forces the body into an open pose that is totally defenceless. The rope collar pushing the chin up amplifies that effect.

Suspension poses can make for the most spectacular of bondage images and Bound Gods does some of the best, but I'm not sure about this one. Visually the captive's legs seem neither together nor apart and they are only half folded back, looking a little loose and untidy. What this picture does capture very well, however, is the impression of being suspended above a terrifying, dark, deep abyss.


It's been a long day in the dungeon and a shaky Seamus has to steady himself against the wall.

And so to bed. A bare cell, a rude bed, a length of chain.
The prisoner sleeps, seeming to be resigned to his fate. 
This image is very understated but the message of captivity, so simply conveyed,
is arguably the most powerful of them all.

I'm planning a few more posts featuring Seamus in the coming weeks
a sort of mini-hunk hunt - Part 2

Wednesday 30 January 2019

Beautifully Bound - Seamus O'Reilly

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-e7oxDN95FT7igI6qXyc7XYGMvkKHg7ZEmt1c88mIxK0d1ORzLO4DqNyZEhJC6R3sFKFlK3X8a49q7pPnaZ5hxEu-19AD7UIyX2_6HmnysK2HGWHSPo-4Zs_cjz3FuKJgIxRSZfnwX1iA/s1600/1+L9.jpg
Seamus O'Reilly by Kink
 Seamus O'Reilly is a nice looking chap but it's the bondage that stars in this picture.
Not exactly simple, but economical immobilisation.
Crushingly so on such a lean frame.
There's a rope in the crick of his knees which will deliver discomfort in due course.

Sunday 27 January 2019

Little Known Incidents of WW2 (No 9) - Bizarre Brutality 3 - Darkie Crucified

 The story of Darkies Mob ran from 1976 to 1978 in the 'Battle Picture Weekly' Comic
Considering the young age of the target audience, it contained, and implied, remarkable levels of violence, illustrated in this extract.


'Darkie', shown above, led his troop through many daring exploits, in this example pretending to surrender in order to be able to destroy a railway being built by Prisoners of War and the POW camp itself.


Darkie's mob were depicted as a thorn in the enemy's side and fought with a cruel ruthlessness that seems highly dubious by modern standards. The enemy retribution against Darkie himself as a prisoner explicitly reflects that provocation.


The idea of nailing a captive to a bamboo roof, crucifixion style, is certainly spectacular 
and definitely fits into the category of 'bizarre punishments'. Not ideal I would have thought for tormenting the victim physically, necessitating the verbal taunting shown here.
(By an enemy who speaks decent english, note).


Darkie frees himself in truly heroic fashion by simply ripping out the nails.
This artist has a knack for capturing men's faces in a nice, realistic style.
If you like the mature look, Darkie has his attractions (if you can cope with the physicality!)
There's even a hint of sexuality in that hairy torso. Nipples though are taboo.



The portrayal of the enemy soldier here seems to dally with more extreme caricature but, apart from the bared teeth and the obvious racial characteristics, this man is not so very different from Darkie himself and the craggy faces of the other British soldiers shown in the picture at the top of this article. 

In this strip Darkie himself metes out ruthless vengance, sometimes against undeserving opponents and occasionally including his own men, striking a balance of nastiness on both sides which is refreshingly frank and disturbing.

I will be featuring this artist and his heroes again in future articles.

Go to No 10

Click to read other Bizarre Punishments from No 1
or click on the 'War Comics' label below

Sunday 20 January 2019

Most Popular 'mitchmen' Posts of All Time up to 2018

M Carcel - Runaway
In this third and final part of my annual review of post popularity I present the all-time, all-comers, most popular posts and as you might guess from the picture above and past history, it's still Mike Carcel in the number one position. But only just! Priapus of Milet is just behind and poised to dethrone the King next time.

According to my Blogger 'hit stats', out of all the mitchmen articles published to date, those registering the most hits since publication were as shown below.


Table 3 – mitchmen Articles With Most Hits Since Publication to end 2018

Posn
(last yr)
Title of Post
(& link)
Year of
Pub'n
Total
Hits
1 (1)
2010
24020
2 (2)
2012
23787
3 (6)
2008
16830
4 (3)
2010
14385
5 (4)
2009
13786
6 (5)
2009
11600
7 (7)
2010
9500
8 (10)
2012
7430
9 (9)
2009
7284
10= (8)
2012
6878
10= (20)
2009
6878
12 (11)
2010
6442
13 (13)
2011
6145
14 (11)
2009
6098
15 (12)
2010
6090
16 (15)
2012
6047
17 (-)
2015
5946
18 (-)
2017
5817
19 (17)
2010
5813
20 (16)
2010
5730


The all time top 20 saw a close finish in 2018 with my Mike Carcel A-Z article only just keeping it's top spot. Priapus of Milet-1 in second place closed the gap from 3061 to a mere 233 during 2018, so we may have a new leader next year. Late-starter, A-Z article on Cavelo did even better hits-wise and jumped 3 places, better than I predicted last year - but he's still a distant 3rd

I down-graded this chart last year because it had become rather static, but there have been some interesting developments this year and the overall increase in blog traffic in recent years has made those top totals seem less formidable targets for new challengers.

Further down the list, the honours go to A-Z of Fetish Artists – The Hun which rose 10 places to grab a toehold in the top 10. It almost, but not quite, pushed out 'My Initiation' which slid to equal 10th. A-Z of Fetish Artists – Platter had a another good year rising 2 places to 8th spot despite scoring fewer hits than the previous year. Several other artists in the top 10 also saw their hit counts slide during 2018.

There's usually a bit of jockeying for position in the 10-20 places but the established order was upset by two, new arrivals:- my own A Christmas Criminal by Mitchell (1-5) at 17 which obviously delights me and The Milking Factory at 18 which astonishingly has made this top 20 list in less than 2 years. These two articles are the only ones dated later than 2012. If they carry on scoring at this year's rate during 2019 they will soon be in top 10 territory. However, it's a sobering thought that even Milking Factory's score in 2018 alone was less than the hit counts of the top two articles. The arrival of these newcomers displaced A-Z of Fetish Artists – Matt and A-Z of Fetish Artists – Manflesh from the top 20.


For comparison, my 'Index of Artists' page reached 26856 hits during the year (up from 16040) which would have earned top spot in this ranking if I counted it as a post. It shows the tremendous interest in artists who work in our field.


Missing years just outside the list

Average hit rates

The total cumulative hits method of assessing popularity is obviously biased towards older articles so it's interesting to compare average hits per year since publication - see table below. In this list, multi-part articles are represented by the highest scoring individual post and I have left out 2018 posts which don't even have a full year yet and are covered by a separate table.
(If I had included them they would have bagged 5 of the top 10 spots!)

Article
Published
Hits per year
Position
(& last year)
'Total Hits' position
2012
3547
1 (1)
2
2017
3118
2 (-)
18
2010
2824
3 (2)
1
2008
1978
4 (9)
3
2015
1966
5 (3)
17
2017
1899
6 (-)
-
2017
1735
7 (-)
-
2010
1691
8 (4)
4
2009
1621
9 (6)
5
2009
1364
10 (7)
6


As you can see, the usual suspects still bag most of the top spots suggesting they won't be shifted easily by newcomers. Every article in the top 10 improved it's score in 2018, indicating sustained interest even in the oldies. Notice that there's a striking gap in scores between place No 3 and No 4.

This method tends to benefit popular, newer articles and there are some interesting beneficiaries this year. 'Milking Factory' has dramatically impacted all my charts this year as has Mitch Colby, Part 5 to a lesser extent. The third 'newbie' here, Chirenon's brilliant 'A New Life For Our Air Force Boys' hasn't cropped up in any of these numbers before however. That's because it was originally published too late in the year (27th Oct) to register in the 2017 'new articles' table. For that reason I didn't record a score for that year end which in turn means I haven't calculated a figure for 2018 hits either. However it's score in 2017 must have been less than the top 20 cut-off figure of 359. Since it's total now is 2044 so it must have registered at least 1686 hits in 2018 which would have put it 13th position in the all-comers chart for that year and possibly 12th. Perhaps I had better go back and adjust that article!

The new article effect is often fleeting and my own story of 'A Christmas Criminal' did well to hang on to No 5 in 2018, but 'Woodunart' from 2016 was pushed out of the top 10, along with Tagame (Part 1)

The oldest A-Z entries, notably letters A-G, were quite sketchy and originally had censored images. My plans to revise more of these articles are progressing slowly. I think the scores for these articles also suffered from the blog suspension in July 2010 which seemed to have wiped out the historical statistics and I can't fix that.

The articles I post to this blog are very much based on my own interests and fancies but the results of this survey do help me plan future offerings. My readers preferences doesn't always match my own (where are Kalabro, Les, JoeT and Link?). Nevertheless it's gratifying to see such interest in the great artists who often have a fairly low visibility on the web.

Remember, this comparison is only made for entertainment, since I don't really know how accurate Google's stats are, I suspect they don't even count people who just browse through the blog roll.

Thanks to all of you for your continuing interest and support.

Wednesday 16 January 2019

Milking Factories No 4

Choppski - Milking Factory
 Choppski has produced a nice neat facility here for milking semen from helpless hunks.
The extraction mechanisms vary slightly in detail, but there's a nice uniformity in the line-up
 which gives a real sense of a mass production set-up.

You will observe that these three captives have produced different amounts of 'product'. It isn't clear whether that is down to the efficacy of their machines, their own genetic make-up or something else. The relatively poor performance of the youngest-looking one is rather surprising.

I like the simplicity of the restraint arrangements in this image and the artist's decision not to include any body attachments or inserts for stimulating his 'Bulls' into action. It allows their total nudity to shine through.

The arrangements for keeping the milking sleeves in place on restless milk-ees are not clear either, some sort of suction perhaps? a clamp? a claw? Whatever the technology is, the visual effect is of the machine being totally in charge of each man who needs only to be tethered to be rendered totally subservient.

Notice the suggestion of a radiation hazard on the collection device!

Alien Semen Farm (attributed to Sarander) - click to enlarge
This sci-fi, semen farm is quite different. There's a variety of devices for controlling the humans while they are being forced to give up their seed. There isn't a strong sense of a production line. With the machines dotted around in random fashion, it seems more like an experimental lab set-up, while the Queen Bee presiding over events at the rear puts one in mind of a medieval despot's torture chamber. 

These men might be the luckless, captured crew of a space-ship, so perhaps they do have a novelty value to their captors, warranting experimentation. The aliens seem to know exactly what they want from them however - and the sexiest way to get it, with no expense spared! It's a matter of conjecture whether the leather gags and blindfolds are intended to stimulate the milk-producing crew in their endeavours or the alien spectators, but it's a detail somewhat at odds with the hi-tech setting.

The three devices on the right are actually more similar than they first appear and they actually follow the same, 4-limb restraint principle as Choppski's simple stands. However, these alien constructs allow their captives more freedom to squirm and buck as they give up their loads. Whether this enlightened, 'organic' approach improves the quality of the milk, or the yields, I cannot say, but I do like the open-legged squatting pose that seems to be the standard 'rest' position for this device.

The captive on the left is just being fitted with his catheter-like tube which will channel his production into the collection tubes when he's all connected up. This restraint chair seems extravagantly over-engineered in comparison with Choppski's vision but perhaps it's multi-purpose. 

I can't decide whether the captive on the far right has been temporarily disconnected while he has refreshments and is topped up with re-hydrating fluid or whether his alien attendant is priming him by hand, tickling his balls to get him going.

Visit No 5 The Milking Factory Development Lab

Previous Milking Factories: No 1 (feat Kalabro), No2 (feat Nowid), No3 (feat Cupcakes666)

Saturday 12 January 2019

Cavelo is Most Visited 'mitchmen' Post during 2018

According to my Blogger 'hit stats', out of all the mitchmen blog articles published to date, 
my A-Z article on Cavelo was the one that registered the most hits during 2018 .
-
Cavelo - Buddies Interrogated

Cavelo is an unflagging champion of gay fetish art but his special talent is his ability to depict cute men.
The one on the left is my special favourite.
I suspect the bottomless chair is an idea borrowed from 'Casino Royale'. 

Table 1 – mitchmen Articles with Most Hits in 2018

Position
(& last year)
Article
Published
Hits in
2017
Hits in 2018





1 (2)
2008
4844
6574
2 (1)
2012
5673
5722
3 (9)
2017
1411
4406
4 (3)
2010
3681
2894
5 (6)
2009
2158
2836
6 (-)
2018

2516
7 (8)
2009
1597
2507
8 (-)
2017

2489
9 (12)
2014
1258
2217
10 (-)
2009

2208
11 (4)
2015
2402
2169
12 (5)
2010
2354
1691
13 (10)
2010
1347
1550
14 (-)
2014

1510
15 (15)
2012
1126
1420
16 (19)
2014
1014
1342
17 (7)
2012
1778
1334
18 (14 )
2009
1140
1311
19= (13)
2009
1204
1202
19 = (-)
2014

1202

To clarify, this table shows hits registered during the year 2018 for all articles, not just those published in 2018 which  is shown in the 2018 'new articles' listing. The titles in all the tables link to the original posts. Please tell me if you have difficulty with any links

This year A-Z of Fetish Artists – Cavelo has recaptured top spot from Priapus of Milet-1. Both increased their counts, Cavelo substantially so, which illustrates his enormous popularity considering he doesn't seem to be producing new work now. The tussle for top spot between these two artists in recent years is fascinating, given their contrasting styles (conventional vs CGI) and content (fetish vs vanilla) .

The other perennial chart-topper A-Z of Fetish Artists – Mike Carcel was dislodged from No 3 position in 2018 by the first in the 'Milking Factory' series which seems to be one of those topics which hits a sensitive spot for many fetish fans. The popularity of this theme continued with two more articles posted in 2018 also doing well (see Most Popular 2018 New Posts). Mike's A-Z post saw a decline in hits this year, perhaps reflecting a general lack of visibility for his controversial work on the web. I have lost track of where he is posting now (if anywhere). He still scored more than the record-breaking 'IFNB', top post from 2018 which entered the chart at No 6, illustrating how hard it is for new articles to break into this yearly top 20, let alone the old-style chart based on cumulative hits. Of course it might have been a different story if IFNB had had a full year of hits instead of just 10 months.

The other notable new entry is the Mitch Colby wrestling (with spanking!) article from 2017, a success that doesn't entirely surprise given the size and enthusiasm of the man-spanking fraternity and it's initial impact in the 2017 chart. This fetish also scores well with the continued interest in my note containing some unusual Vintage Spanking Art at No 16. The retrospective flavour of this blog is represented in the bondage arena by the article on the seminal and ground-breaking 'Bound & Gagged Magazineat No 9, which continues to pick up visitors and recognition.

This list is usually dominated by my A-Z of Fetish artists and there are 11 this year. Jotto and The Hun have maintained elevated positions with much increased hit counts but others (including Franco and Michael Mitchell) have been displaced by the new arrivals which include two 'new' A-Z names. Julius's arrival at No 10 is something of a surprise but probably reflects the promotional effects of my occasional posts re-captioning selected images, together with the recent overhaul of his A-Z entry. In contrast Tagame's entry at No 14 seems long overdue for such an acknowledged master of our genre. Likewise the venerable Baron at No 19 whose photo-manips don't qualify for the A-Z series but is nevertheless a quiet colossus whose technical skills are amazing and whose fetish ingredients have a marvellous subtlety. With these new arrivals, 2013 is now the only year since 2008 not represented in this table. The nearest contender for this role is Hethong Male Spanking at No38

My own Christmas Criminal' story dropped from 4 to 11 (despite my continued plugging on the 'front page'!) but I'm happy to be anywhere in this august company. I started posting my own work here more regularly last year, we'll see where that leads.

My 'Index of Artists' Page scored 10,816 hits in 2018, which exceeded all these articles by a large margin. I'm glad visitors are finding it useful and hope it will lead newcomers to fantastic art they never saw before.

Total blog visits this year were 559K, up 42% from 2017, a phenomenon I cannot explain. 
The cut-off figure is almost exactly the same as the previous year so it seems the increased traffic must be widely spread. It is also quite selective, since in the table above some articles have significantly increased hits where others have suffered sharp falls, yet still remained within the top 20.

Total mitchmen blog visits for all years are now 2.88 million

Next time I will reveal the winner of the all-time cumulative hit counts.
Did Mike Carcel hold onto his top spot?

Tuesday 8 January 2019

A-Z on Brick revised

Brick - Level 5 (from Brick and The Mad Scientists)

My illustrated version of Steve MacHalperin's story 'Brick and The Mad Scientists' (originally published at the now defunct mitchmen Yahoo! Group) is now available as a free PDF from the Mitchmen Club at Adonis Male.

The original story, published at the old Greasetank site, was illustrated by the artist 'Brick' and this is one of his pictures showing the hapless captive, Brick (confusingly named after the artist) being subjected to electro-torture to activate various malign drugs that have been injected into his body. His tormentors have just raised the intensity of the current to level 5 and Brick shudders as it surges through him.

As part of this project I have updated and extended my original A-Z article about Brick
 with lots of additional pictures and commentary

Friday 4 January 2019

IFNB is Most Popular New 'mitchmen' Post of 2018

IFNB Contest Expediters take the rough with the smooth

At this time of year it is my custom to review the year's posts to see which attracted the most visitors. According to my Blogger 'view count' stats*, the 20 below are the most-visited mitchmen posts out of the 119 published in 2018 (titles have links to the original posts).

Posn
Title (+link)
Hits
Published
1
2519
Mar
2
1110
Jul
3
1045
Apr
4
974
May
5
964
Jan
6
867
Apr
7
861
Jul
8
755
Mar
9
699
Aug
10
658
Aug
11
604
Jul
12
586
May
13
558
Apr
14
543
Jul
15
538
Jan
16
529
Dec
17
507
May
18
522
Feb
19
477
Mar
20
472
Jan
Stats collected on 31st December 2018

The winner this year with an astonishing 2519 hits was my review of the IFNB fantasy site. This count smashes Woodunart's record of 1443 in 2016. I rarely feature full-on body-builders in this blog because I don't like vein-y skin, but IFNB's imaginative scenarios and sexy humour were irresistible. Interestingly my article on Musclemorphs created by 'BuiltBySteve', which was published late in 2017, had scored 895 by the end of 2018 and probably would have made the 2017 top 10 had it been published earlier in the year. IFNB attracted steady interest throughout the year and it will be interesting to see if that continues in 2019
.
Runner up Homoeros also exceeded the 1000 mark and just pipped Sparkieshock in the final days of the year. Six of the eight articles I published on this artist made the top 20 with the other two not far behind. This artist combines some fairly extreme fetish areas with visually attractive images and I expected him to do well here but it's nice to see his subtler, non-S&M imagery also doing well. Of course, Homoeros' multiple successes tends to diminish or block out other worthy and popular articles so I have also prepared a table limiting Homoeros to just his top scoring entry.

Sparkieshock's art at No 3, has similar qualities to Homoeros but with a slightly softer and more accomplished style. He takes Bound Gods style electro-torture scenarios to a level that you might call hyper-realism. In their different ways, these two artists show how art can depict what video makers cannot. The lycra art of Opemam77, further down, unexpectedly completes a trio of 'modern' artists.

Last year my article about Mitch Colby and his dual fetish and wrestling careers did well, but that was eclipsed in 2018 by the 'Wrestling Arsenal' review which is the first ever December post to make it into the top 20 (thanks more to the referrals from that site rather than my journalistic talents!). Naturally posts from January have an enormous advantage over December in simple hit counts terms, in fact 11 of the top 20 articles this year come from Jan and Feb! So it's not surprising that nothing else after August even made the cut, which at 472 was the highest ever, beating the previous record of 426 in 2014. All articles scored higher than the equivalent ranking position last year, most by substantial margins of 50% or more (View last years table). This is partly only partly accounted for by the 25% increase in number of visits to mitchmen overall.

Other notable entries are the two follow-up articles featuring Milking Factories which almost matched the success of the original Milking Factory fantasies published in 2017. The popularity of this scenario is not hard to understand, being built on a fundamental male fantasy for tops and bottoms alike. The best of these artists bring it to life on a scale video creators could not afford.

The remarkable Tentacles GIF not far behind completes a memorable top-6 line-up 
(with 'Rogue 11 at no 20 making it a double debut year for GIF's in this review).

'A-Z of Fetish Artist' articles used to feature prominently in these charts and it's good to see 3 of the old-guard (B2, Malex and Ajay) making an appearance. I'm pleased two of my own creations also made the adjusted top 20 – 'Last Chance Saloon' and the re-captioning of Julius 'Pirates' image. Seven of the top 20 articles were photograph-based up from 4 last year


Average Hit Rates
I mentioned above how early articles benefit from being visible for a longer period of time, so finally, I worked out how this table would look if I took into account the publication date (i.e. days on the site) as well as the total hits.

On this measure (ave hit rate per 365 days) Wrestling Arsenal (9,195) takes top spot by a colossal margin with IFNB (3,096) second. Then comes Homoeros-1 (2,426), Milking Factories and Sparkieshock. The rest of the order doesn't change much.

However this method is no less flawed than the simple comparison of totals, giving undue weight to later postings which fit their initial surge of readers into a shorter timescale. Wrestling Arsenal is a telling example and most December posts multiplied by 12 would challenge the leaders. 

Remember, this comparison is only made for entertainment, since I don't really know how accurate Google's stats are, I suspect they don't even count people who just browse through the blog roll.
 

If you want to look at previous years surveys click on the 'MPP' label below

Thank you to all my readers for your interest in my blog, 
I will publish the updated all-time list of favourites shortly. 

Happy New Year!