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| Kalabro - Milking Dave |
Above, a dramatic image by Kalabro taken from the original 'Milking Factory' article which was the most visited of all the posts at mitchmen in 2022. The 2009 mitchmen A-Z article on his early work also broke into the top 20 this year at No17 (below) and this artist also provided the second most popular new post of 2022.
The table below lists the 20 most visited mitchmen posts during 2021.
Commentary notes follow. (Titles have links to the original posts ).
TABLE 1 - Top 20 Posts at mitchmen (2022)
Rank (last yr) |
Title (+link) |
Total Hits |
Last year |
Pub Date |
Note |
1 (2) |
9847 |
9931 |
2017 |
1 |
|
2 (1) |
8964 |
11987 |
2018 |
1 |
|
3 (5) |
6189 |
5022 |
2020 |
2 |
|
4 (-) |
6027 |
806 |
2008 |
3 |
|
5 (3) |
4555 |
7396 |
2018 |
4 |
|
6 (-) |
3830 |
886 |
2009 |
3 |
|
7 (9) |
3347 |
3389 |
2008 |
3 |
|
8 (10) |
3166 |
3116 |
2012 |
3 |
|
9 (12) |
Come and Get It! (Royale Studios Archive) |
3241 |
2304 |
2021 |
5 |
10 (7) |
2828 |
4053 |
2020 |
2 |
|
11 (4) |
2374 |
6051 |
2018 |
1 |
|
12 (16) |
2353 |
2169 |
2020 |
2 |
|
13 (6) |
2312 |
4562 |
2020 |
2 |
|
14 (11) |
2073 |
2533 |
2010 |
3 |
|
15 (8) |
2041 |
3515 |
2019 |
1 |
|
16 (19) |
The Art of 'Muscle' Matt -1 | 1977 |
2064 |
2019 |
6 |
17 (-) |
1964 |
1145 |
2009 |
3 |
|
18 (18) |
1956 |
2076 |
2018 |
1 |
|
19 (20) |
1900 |
2040 |
2020 |
1 |
|
20 (-) |
1820 |
1952 |
2018 |
4 |
(Stats collected on 31st December 2022)
1
This year the original Milking Factory post finally claimed the prize of being most visited during the year. It has been edging closer and closer to top spot ever since it first appeared in 2017 and in 2022 finally overtook the 'mitchmen review of IFNB' which has been it's principal rival in the last couple of years. However, the hit counts of both articles declined in a year in which visits to the blog generally were slightly down.
Milking Factory posts continued to feature further down the table at 11, 15 and 18 (albeit with reduced hits) and with three more bunched together just outside the top 20, the popular appeal of this series seems undimmed.
The same is true of the IFNB series which continued to score well despite being edged out of top position and the companion article 'IFNB Revisited' slightly improved it's position to No 19. The disappearance of this marvellous and very popular blog is a great loss,
I must do a 3rd IFNB feature here soon!
N.B. The 'Etienne/Stephen article index (whose sudden popularity in 2021 surprised and bemused me) turned in another reasonable performance by normal standards this year, not quite enough to stay in the top 20, but it finished at 23.
2
There was quite a big gap down to the third placed article 'Amalaric - 1, A Slave to Passion' but that article did succeed in raising it's hit count during the year, considerably closing the gap on the leaders. No 3 in the series did the same trick, lifting it to 12th spot while Part 2 (Ancient History) just missed the cut at No 21. The institutional enslavement fantasies of these articles did much to set the tone of this blog in recent years and there's no sign that they are running out of steam yet. I didn't add to the series in 2022 but there is more material I would like to post, so watch this space.
Brosfate was a strong rival to Amalaric when they were first published but fell further behind in 2022. His more conventional bdsm scenarios still secured two places in the top 20 at No 10 and No 13.
3
2022 saw something of a return of the old days with a number of favourites from the mitchmen A-Z of Fetish Artists series unexpectedly entering the chart - Brick (at No 4), Franco (6) and Kalabro (17). In the case of the last two it's been a gap of 4-5 years since we saw them in the top 20.
The popularity of the Brick article was linked to the release of those tremendous new pictures from him at Metalbond , who helpfully guided his readers to read my 2008 article on his work.
The Kalabro article benefitted from the publication of his Slave Gang picture here at the start of the year and the 'Best of Kalabro' post I was prompted to write as a result. I admit that I shamelessly promote Kalabro's work here and greatly miss his contributions to our art.
('Slave Gang' was one of two 2022 posts which would have squeaked into this table except that I have disallowed new posts this year, the other was a promotional post on Brick)
Franco is another great artist of long standing but his sudden return took me by surprise. His older works mentioned in my A-Z article can lay claim to being pioneers of the Mechanical Milking genre and he's achieved the remarkable feat in recent years of re-inventing himself in an entirely new style, producing more realistic variations of his old pieces that are supremely erotic. Like Brick, his hits mushroomed dramatically during the year but unlike Brick I don't know why. I guess someone has posted a link to my blog somewhere and wholeheartedly thank them!
These three re-joined the amazing Cavelo (7) and MCarcel (14) whose presence in this table seems permanent despite the articles being over 10 years old, their having ceased to publish new work and having no 'home' on the web (as far as I know, if you know better please tell me!). These are great artists but it's still an astonishing testament to their popularity. Priapus of Milet is a new boy by comparison but is shaping up the same way. His steady flow of super new art seems to assure him of continued popularity here.
This phenomenon has meant that 8 different years are represented in this years table
4
Homoeros continued to maintain a presence in the table with the Gallery Guide (whose popularity seems bafflingly at variance with the rather dry content) in 5th place and 'Art of the Cross' reappearing at 20, possibly benefiting from the St Jinx picture I posted this year.
5
I was personally gratified to see that my Royale Studio Open Archive Post continued to attract hits this year at No 9. It's not really a measure of popularity because I regularly publish new versions linked to the Archive updates but I think the preservation of information on these pioneers of British fetish photography is highly important and the best way to achieve that in this day and age is copy it and copy it. My hope of consolidating as much as possible about Royale within the open archive is really just the first small step but I'm delighted that there are plenty of people out there who support it with their interest.
This post and the two IFNB articles were the only photographic entries in the list
6
'Muscle' Matt continued to attract visits at No 16. I love his swaggering bodybuilders and am glad mitchmen blog has provided a rare platform for the retrospective appreciation of his stylish, amusing and very special sketches.
~
The most interesting post that didn't quite make it into the top 20 was The Art of Black Prof at No22, helped this year, I suppose, by my new post about his Tarzan storyette (which only just missed the cut for the top new post of 2022). His male bondage scenes are something of a side-line but I'm hoping that one day he will produce something for us that emulates the voluptuous glamour of his female captives.
The four posts displaced from last year's table are:
Roa and Control Room Violation were two of the outstanding new stars of last year of course and their fall vividly demonstrates the difficulty for new articles in keeping up with the scores of their first weeks following publication. It underlines the achievement of the 'old timers', that seem to have 'built-in majority' any politician would die for.
~
This year's chart favourites are the usual mix of old and new, with photography, cartoons, renders, photo-manips and traditional art representing an impressive, eclectic range of interests.
As I reported in the last post, overall visits to the blog dropped a little this year (by 1%) after last year's amazing 20% rise. The winner's total here and the 'cut off' figure for entering the top 20 dropped by rather more, suggesting visitors are exploring a wider range of articles.
The mitchmen 'Index
of Artists' feature recorded 12,497 hits in 2022, up a modest 2% on 2021 but still less than 2019's record 13,951. It was still visited often enough to have taken top place if I had included
it in the top 20 table above.
I'm glad visitors are still finding the index useful and hope it will lead
many more newcomers to a fantastic heritage of gay art they didn't
know about.
Next
time I will reveal the most popular mitchmen post of all time, based on cumulative hits - did
Priapus of Milet still manage to keep his top spot and hold off IFNB and Milking Factories?
To look at other charts for earlier years click on the MPP label at the foot of this post.
Thanks to all of you
for your continuing interest and support of mitchmen blog.
Keep it tight in 2023!
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