Art by Aizenhower

In this article I have gathered together a selection of work attributed to Aizenhower which I just happen to like. He seems to have an amazing range of styles and I don't claim this to be a comprehensive or balanced review. The titles are mine, generally his own simply provide names of the fantasy heroes depicted, rather than the subject matter.

Shower Stud

Shower scenes have always been meat and drink to the soft porn industry and it's usually a private place for reflection and the release of personal tensions, but there's a hint of  'Psycho' about this image. The strong, chunky hunk washing his hero-length hair unexpectedly shows a sexy vulnerability at being disturbed, vulnerability verging on panic .

Behind Bars

A hero's life is not all steamy, but there's plenty of sex. This one faces the double jeopardy of being tied up and locked up in a cell at the mercy of his captors. However, he must surely have consented in some way to this arrangement to be exploited by a guard through the bars of his cage. Possibly it's a ploy to escape, worth the teeth-gritting unpleasantness, but his bushing cheeks reveal that it's still an affront to his self image. It's a great picture.

Double Trouble

It's not clear whether this is a captivity situation but it does look as if the man at the middle of this trio is not very happy about being fought over. His paler skin colour seems to suggest innocence and softness, desirable qualities that are amplified by the vulnerable position they have put him in. One of the two men fighting over him seems to be the muscular hunk from the shower (above) and he has a similarly confused expression here. The third man seems to be a lot keener on sharing (or acquiring) the prize, definitely up for it you might say. He has a curious, old-fashioned moustache that used to be the sign of a foppish cad. 

Chained up and Open

Almost the same position of vulnerability but the addition of restraining chains and a bare, supporting shelf transforms it into a more intense situation. Tom of Finland almost invented this image back in 1970, giving it a disarmingly whimsical treatment (see below). Aizenhower's captive has a more modern appearance and a more serious expression at the prospect of initiation into the dark mysteries. 

Tom of Finland - Biker chained to a wall

 Tom of Finland's interpretation is surprisingly frank for it's time.

Typically, it's full of ambiguity and improbable body positions. 

But there's a distinct sense of a man getting his comeuppance.

click on the label at the foot of the post for more Tom of Finland imagery

Butt Machine

The initiation of the novice continues. 

The impersonal power of the machine is somehow more daunting than even the most intimidating of men. More exciting perhaps if you've taken the dare, but terrifying if you haven't.

Morning Wood

Beds are like showers, they are normally a place of safety, 

a place for recharging batteries and relieving of tension.

But like Showers and Psycho, there's an exception to every rule.....

Medical groping

An appointment at the clinic turns into something else. 

I can't understand why this man is complaining!

This is the sort of carer we'd all like to have.

Milking Therapy

Alone with the machine, this patient might wish the hunky medic was back. This milking device is clearly designed to extract more than a small sample. I love the bubbling flask of accumulating discharge in the foreground. The pressure gauge emphasises the intensity of the process and, like the butt machine, it's completely impersonal and unresponsive to appeals. Interestingly the patient is not restrained but there comes a point in this process where he's no longer in control anyway.

Big as an Arm

This more-stylised cartoon uses a similar characterisation of inexperience to the trio picture at the top of this post. The humour here has a tang of truth about it and harks back to the 'It's Gonna Hurt!' porn genre that enjoyed a vogue a few years back until realisation dawned that it was mostly clever camera work and the innocent-acting model on screen didn't find it anywhere near as daunting as the viewer. Which is not to say they weren't bring stretched!

Rugby Tackle

The artist uses a completely different style here and has created a remarkable sense of movement and drama. I'm a fan of rugby imagery and this takes all those pulled shorts pictures to the hoped-for next stage where the tackler grabs his opponents tackle. Aizenhower has captured the stereotypical, physical character traits of rugby players but I suspect the horrified expression of the tackled man is wishful thinking!

Big man spanked

The ability of cartoons to express movement makes them a good medium for spanking imagery and it also defuses the violence. That sense of comeuppance is evident again here where a big man has been stripped naked and is receiving a punishment that's turning his backside as red as his hair. If he has a fiery temperament it's not helped him and the man who is taming him has a youthful look and devilish grin that adds insult to his humiliation.

Underfoot

This character, another conspicuously large man, is shown suffering a more subtle and arguably more profound humiliation. He's been forced to kneel completely naked before robed men who might be part of some mystical order, Samurai perhaps. They contemptuously rest their shoes on him, prod him and cruelly expose his sexual enjoyment at being dominated by them.  

The Samurai's Pleasure

Samurai Warriors are a class apart and not renounced for their kindness to defeated enemies. This image is based on a character called Samurai Champloo whose name apparently means 'making it up as you go along'. That has an ominous ring for this prisoner who can expect anything to happen to him.

Sweaty Lovers

A more conventional statement to end on. The cartoon technique is able to add a little extra via the facial expressions and profuse sweating.

~ 

I haven't found a mainstream site for Aizenhower, his Twitter account is suspended.

There are images at Danbboru and Rule34 and many others if you search.

Classic Homoerotic Images 6

 I have taken the liberty of repeating this image from a recent post 
to accord it it's rightful place in my series of homoerotic classics.

Tom Of Finland - Leather Lovers (1963)

Tom's image of two leather men sensuously nuzzling dicks a classic.

Their affectionate embrace is a bold assertion of the true nature of gay sexuality.

It has deservedly become a much-loved expression of Gay Pride.

Arguably the greatest Homoerotic Image of them all.

Contrast this image with the superficially similar image of cowboys helping each other to dress by Colt. It was pirated by Vivienne Westwood to adorn T-shirts during the punk era, a supposedly shocking product. Colt's image is 6 years later than Tom's and it's deliberately camp. It's another valid view of gay relationships but one that only embraces sexuality in an amusing, titillating way. Westwood's use of it may have been a public recognition of the gay world, but did little to alter perceptions of homosexuality.

Tom of Finland's 'Thieving Cowboy'

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 01

 The villain of the piece spies on his target.

He is a young man dressed in very tight jeans and a leather jacket,

a garment that shows off his dinky bubble butt to perfection.  

He's not obviously a cowboy though, despite the implication of the title.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 02

Seeing there is no-one around, he ventures into the tack room and lifts down a saddle.

He doesn't have the face of a villain, maybe he only wants to sniff it. 

A passing cowboy spots what he is doing and stops to investigate.

But it looks as though it's those juicy buns that have really caught his eye.

We can only imagine his reaction when he sees the impressive shaping at the front,

looming large and unprotected as the young man leans across the box.

The glimpse of  his 'belly button' under the jacket is a delicious detail.

In this sensitively copied image you can see the glorious sensuality of Tom's shading 

which has been largely washed away by the 'enhancement' of image 1. 

(see introductory article )

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 03

He is challenged by a muscular, bare topped cowboy,

You can almost hear the poor lad stammering as he tries to explain himself.

With the passage of time, the striped trousers Tom has given the cowboy to wear have become an incongruity that's hard to swallow. I don't think the fashion was that popular even in the 50's, not in the UK anyway. Now they look as though they belong in a circus rather than a ranch. By contrast the young man's classic jacket and jeans have hardly aged at all although young men don't wear them as tight as this any more (worse luck!).

 

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 05

It's not obvious here whether the cowboy has tried to apprehend the intruder

 or grabbed his jacket or attempted something even more scary for the young man.

It turns out he's not the pussy he looked, having grown into real beefcake all of a sudden.

He sends his attacker reeling away. I'm not quite sure how he's done it though. 

A slap? A head butt? (or BO perhaps?) 

The collapsing cowboy seems to present his crotch bulge to his dangling hand.

But a second cowboy interrupts them at this dramatic, suggestive moment.

I've left a gap in my numbering before this picture

 to allow for the existence of a more explanatory intermediate image 

(see introductory article re: numbering)

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 06

The intervention of cowboy No.2 turns the tables. He puts the hunky intruder into an arm lock, making him bend over, seemingly perched on his thigh. Coincidentally, a degree of lumpiness has resurfaced in those tight jeans. This is one of Tom's great physical domination images, easily ranking alongside the careless motorcyclist and coffee-spilling sailor classics. 

Cowboy No 1 lies dazed on the floor displaying considerable assets of his own in an indecorous, open legged pose. It's similar to another seen here recently in the Colourised Royale Guardsmen post. 

I salvaged this fragment from an old Royale Studio ad with some fairly crude editing but it gives a good idea of the original picture. The struggling pair in the foreground are the essence of the composition, one of the better images in this set. I've also attached an AI-enhanced version that goes to the other extreme but shows what might have been.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 07 

Somehow the captive wriggles free and lunges at his attacker knocking him over. 

He also appears to be taking the chance to grope his opponent's bottom.

In doing so he presents his own backside to the other cowboy 

who returns to the fight with hand outstretched towards the alluring sight.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 08

Cowboy No 2 goes down and the intruder leaps on top of him, fist flailing.

The two men's groins are pressed together but Tom steers clear of the provocative, homoerotic nuzzling of his slightly later, leather lovers (shown below). The slight crotch displacement he uses instead fortuitously produces hint of top and bottom in the alignment. The arched body of the man underneath enhances the impression both of fierce resistance and sexual pleasure.

No 2 seems to be having another go at removing the visitor's leather jacket.

I recovered this image from the same ad as No 6 above and it suffers from the same shortcomings in quality, but there's no mistaking the impressive sense of desperate struggle Tom has managed to capture. He used a similar fight composition in other stories of the this period.

Tom Of Finland - Leather Lovers (1963)

Tom's image of two leather men sensuously nuzzling dicks is a classic.

Their affectionate embrace is a bold assertion of the true nature of gay sexuality.

It has deservedly become a much-loved expression of Gay Pride.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 09

The two cowboys eventually get the upper hand.

They begin to  mete out punishment to the impertinent intruder.

No 2 ties a rope to his ankle to quell his resistance 

while No 1 distracts him with  an open hand spank.

The sequencing of the fight images 5-9 is not completely obvious and there's a temptation to place this image 9 adjacent to No 7 but the initiation of the roping sequence anchors it at the end. The cowboy's hat plays a merry dance of it's own throughout these pictures and is no guide to continuity.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 10

The young man's ankle is tied to a convenient post. The opposing pull of the rope and his restrainer's gagging action produces a flash of curvaceous buttock, a delicious arching of his torso and a look of utter display as he sees his chance of escaping from these men going up in smoke. 

It looks like his jacket is finally coming off.

   

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 12

A few minutes later his other ankle is also tied, spread-eagling his feet wide.

One of his wrists has also been tethered and is being pulled out taut.

His jacket is gently eased off his last untethered limb.

A hand clasps his pec and his arousal shows no sign of abating.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 13

For me this is a most exciting moment.

Having secured their captive in an uncomfortable X-stretch,

one of the cowboys starts to extract his belt from the loops in his jeans

The other starts to undo the flies of his jeans.

The captive recoils, but his his indrawn abs are a futile act 

that only adds another sexy detail to the alluring display of his body

He can only watch what they are doing and wonder where it will go. 

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 14

With the captive now stretched out helpless, 

cowboy No 1 begins to spank him with his own belt.

His colleague watches the captive's response to the punishment with a faint smile

his jeans are showing signs of strain just below his own belt.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 15

With the spanking in full flow, the recipient bows his head.

Tom brings out the dense muscularity of the spanker's back

which serves to underline the intensity of the punishment.

The on-looker extends his forefinger as though furtively pleasuring himself. 

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 16

Finally they release the captive and he sinks to the ground massaging his bottom.

The spectator seems to be showing his approval at the performance,

or is that upraised thumb symbolic of something else?

Notice how their feet are entwined.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 17

No 17 is another nicely drawn, sexy picture which benefits enormously from not having been 'enhanced'.

The thief flees, holding up his jeans but minus his expensive leather jacket.

The blond cowboy could be shouting that he's forgotten his jacket,

but both of them have seemed to be trying to get it off him throughout.

So at this point you might wonder who exactly is the thief ?

You can see that in this picture the offender's ass is completely uncovered. Although we saw the top of his jeans being undone in picture 13, they seemed to remain firmly in place in the images that followed. However the drawing of the waistband in 16 looks as if it may have been an afterthought, a sanitisation of nude buttocks (although this might be a misleading effect of the imperfect picture quality). His X-spread restraint would have prevented complete removal of his jeans anyway, but could it be that between pictures 15 and 17 he was spanked on his bare butt?  

Of course that rueful massage of his buttock could be the aftermath of a more invasive come-uppance. We know from the early biker set discovered in 2015 that Tom was drawing sexually explicit endings to some of his series at least and there are hints throughout this piece that the cowboy's interest in him has a sexual dimension (naturally!). Whatever happened to him was sufficient at any rate to persuade him to abandon his coat and would potentially furnish enough additional material to boost the number of images in the set towards Anderson's claimed total of 26. (See Introductory article)

More Tom of Finland articles at mitchmen

More about Tom at Tom of Finland Foundation

Tom Of Finland's Thieving Cowboy and Royale Studio

Dolphin Photography launched with Tom of Finland's 'Thieving Cowboy' (1960) 

 The 'Thieving Cowboy' is one of Tom of Finland's earliest works and will be familiar to many of the readers of this blog, not least for its memorable spanking content. It's probably less well known that the series was originally commissioned by our friends at Royale Studio. That was in 1957, according to the Colville Gallery, the year Royale itself was launched (see Timeline article at the new Royale blog). 

Coincidentally 1957 was also the year that Tom's pictures first 'came out' in AMG's Physique Pictorial (according to Hooven, Tom of Finland, His Life and Times, Chap 8, see also Tom of Finland Foundation, "How Tom went from belittled pornographer to iconic artist"). 

Hooven remarks that Royale was one of Tom's best customers and that he did 'several' series for them. 
I confess I don't know what the others were. 

The Tom of Finland Retrospective (Gay Men's Press, 1988) included one image from the 'Thieving Cowboy' series on page 14 and dated it as 1958. However, the earliest independently documented reference I can find for it in relation to Royale is an advert in 'Tomorrows Man' beefcake mag in August 1960 marking the launch of Royale's offshoot studio 'Dolphin Photography (reproduced above). 

This advertisement describes it as a 16-picture 'playlet' but a later ad in 'Manifique' in Spring 1961 revised the total upwards to 17. More recently JW Anderson claimed there were 26 images in the set altogether and since he was working with the Tom of Finland Foundation at the time he ought to know. However,  the evidence available to me suggests that 17 is probably right for the Royale set at any rate, although it is an unusual number, not amenable to fitting neatly into a sheet of thumbnails. It's possible Tom produced a longer version for publication elsewhere or that Royale commissioned a subset, perhaps with some new illustrations, thereby enabling them to claim exclusivity. The end of the story (next post) does offer more evidence on this. 

For this article, I have been able to assemble 15 images belonging to the set although 2 of them are incomplete. They come from the following web sources.

• Jock Spank has an article 'Cowboy Thief' with 12 pictures from the set. These images are reasonable quality but have been 'enhanced' and don't have the subtle detail of original drawings. Their numbering doesn't match my larger group.
• Recently 4 images of good original quality appeared on art auction sites purporting to be Numbers 2, 3, 12 and 13 in the series (original numbering). I have used all of them, sticking to their numbering and some replacing Jock Spank images.
• I have two images with numbers in the corners (from I don't know where). They have obviously been cut from Royale thumbnail sheets and show what Nos 14 and 16 depicted, but I have only used 16 for this article.
• To these I have added 4 images found embedded in Dolphin Photography adverts during my recent searches of vintage beefcake mags. Two were easy to extract from the advertising blurb (12 & 17) but the other two were tangled up with other imagery so I have (crudely) extracted them. They are therefore incomplete, mostly lacking backgrounds and definition, but they temporarily fill gaps in the sequence quite usefully. These are included as numbers 6 and 7.

I have guessed where the unnumbered ones fit based on the image narrative.

The next post will feature the full set of pictures as far as I have been able to go with it.

Below, one of the images after photographic enhancement.

Tom of Finland - 'The Thieving Cowboy' - 3, Caught In The Act

Art by Leon

 This is a revised and extended version of an article about Leon in the mitchmen A-Z of fetish artists series, first published in 2010

Leon - Bootlicker

You probably know this image with it's distinctive Tom of Finland flavour*. Leon's would-be sub, practicing on empty boots and pretending he's restrained is rather charming. He's very neat in appearance and has even kept his socks and underwear on. The reality of the roleplay he's imagining would probably be very different.

*I don't think Tom ever did anything exactly like this. The little known image below is more typical of his rather less earthy approach.

Tom of Finland - Boot Worship

A little-known boot-worship sketch by Tom of Finland ca.1978. It's another example of an imperfect sketch being better than the polished final product in some ways. The depiction of the face, without hard edges added, is marvellous.

Leon - Down-Trodden (my title)

A man who pairs up with a true master can expect to be kept firmly in his place. This man is much more mature than the kneeling sub above and that makes his humiliation all the more acute, but it seems he's experienced enough to take it like a sub should, in fact he's positively aroused by it. 

His clothing is intriguing. It's not exactly dungeon attire, suggesting this is not a staged roleplay. Rather it's almost as if he's just come off the street. The dark vest/singlet is the garb of a man who does manual work, which accords (stereotypically) with his hairy torso. The slim shoulder straps, however, are more like gym attire which offers another explanation of where those shapely pecs came from. His trousers though look more like part of a suit than workman's clothes. 

Leon imagines boots as having phallic qualities here by illustrating a symmetry between the toe of a boot and the tip of a cock. 

Leon - Power Down

Leon's art comes from the 80's era of Drummer and this must be such a magazine illustration. It's a notably different take on fire fighters compared with the chocolatey, bare-top beefcake that spawned a thousand calendars. There are a variety of fetish references included in this picture - Helmet of course, but also the mask with air tube, axe and thigh-length boots made of rubber. The daring analogy with enemas reflects the pre-AIDS era of celebrating all things gay and pushing boundaries. Physically daring as well, to use a high pressure hose.

Leon - Electro

There's a distinct touch of Tagame in the depiction of this man being subjected to electro-stimulation with an arty embellishment suggesting deeper pleasures. Once again he shows a mature man with a stocky build and very hairy torso. These days this open-legged pose has become a tentacles cliché, it seems too static and relaxed for a situation in which either energetic squirming or arcing rigidity is to be expected. Nice draughtsmanship though., with an arty embellishment implying deeper pleasures.

~

Leon has an accomplished style so it's surprising but I haven't found a website or gallery link for him. 

More Leon at mitchmen

Spanking Art Recreated by Mark

It's a bit early for Christmas but if you're a regular visitor to the 'mitchmen' blog you may recognise something familar in this image. That's because it's a remarkable photo-manip reinvention by 'Mark' of one of my own drawings taken from 'A Christmas Criminal'. I was delighted and flattered when I stumbled across it recently at JockSpank blog. My original image is shown alongside it below, for comparison. Mark has done a remarkable job, bringing it to life with participants who fit in exactly with the way I originally imagined them. 

 

You can see my original picture in context, in Christmas Criminal Part 23

or read Mitchell's 'A Christmas Criminal' from the beginning.

Mark has applied the same treatment to a number of other classic spanking images and I've borrowed a few down below.

 

This is one of the best of the rest, not least because Tom of Finland's original is such a terrific picture, but Mark certainly captures the frightened motorbike thief and although the outraged owner waiting to punish him, belt in hand, isn't entirely successful, his assistant, eagerly tugging down the victim's jeans to reveal an eminently spankable ass, is a slight improvement on the original.

In this picture Mark has supplied the swimming pool context which Harry Bush omitted, also the offender's swimming trunks, which lie discarded in a heap nearby. It's a sexy embellishment. I confess I hadn't noticed before that he is wearing dog-tags implying he's a military man and therefore of an age and status to believe himself beyond such punishments. That detail and the spanker's, Lifeguard whistle are less obvious in the Harry Bush, 'No Running' original which dallies perilously with modern taboos on age.

Neither Tom nor Harry Bush are spanking 'specialists' but Spryte is and his cartoon style is dramatically transformed by Mark's re-engineering. He has significantly altered the head of the captive guinea pig in the new version and that adds a nice erotic flavour for me although it departs from the context of the original. On the other hand I am amazed how close the spanking machine is to Spryte's drawing. It also shows the convergence with Franco's memorable devices.

 

~

 

 There are many more images in this series which you can view in two posts at JockSpank blog. In them he also covers Franco, Jonathan, Cavelo, Copper and many more. His choice of 'classics' is almost as interesting as the new pictures themselves. You can also see the new images on their own in two 'Full Size' Posts at Jock-Spank.com.

 

Mark has been around at Jock Spank for some years and he supplied one of my 'First Catch Your Rogue' images not so long ago. His flair for populating humourous spanking images with highly attractive men is impressive. There's an eye-catching design capability too in, for example, his 'Swap Card' and 'Calendar' series. This collection, however, hightlights his remarkable technical skill. It's one thing to manipulate photos into an image of one's own choosing and quite another to morph them into someone else's mould. He doesn't always totally succeed but some of the results are outstanding and the process sometimes uncovers new aspects of the selected pictures. You'll find plenty of linkage to other work by him at the JockSpank references above.

The Art of Ivan Bubentcov

 

Ivan Bubentcov is a Russian artist whose work caught my eye because of the stylistic likeness to the work of Tom of Finland. For example in this image you can see it in the faces/torso, the quirky poses, cheeky humour and simple background with winding path and trees. In fact this artist has a distinctive technique (evident in the foreground engine detail) which is retro in feel but quite different to ToF. However Bubentcov's reinvention of Kake-like, playful, highly masculine men is a relatively unusual and profound way to acknowledge the Finnish Master in the modern era.

These images come from a group of Tractor Driver pictures. Bubentcov's use of Farm worker imagery seems to echo Tom's fascination with Lumberjacks rather neatly, but if you look at the styling of this image you can see it's much influenced by 1930's design (e.g. the clouds) and Soviet 'Heroic Worker' art in the subject matter (albeit used subversively). Obviously there are less welcome comparisons between gay oppression in Russia now and in Tom's era which no doubt drives the use of sexual innuendo, but I don't think Tom was ever as obviously oblique as this.

Whilst this sauna scene might suggest more Tom connections it's really the closeness of Scandinavian and Russian culture that's responsible here and you'd never confuse this with a Tom picture. He's even emulated a steamy atmosphere. The faces here are recognisably Russian, which is to be applauded. The use of nettles for stimulating the skin is part of the sauna treatment but once again there's an interesting use of heavy innuendo, linking it to the younger man's bottom.

This sauna is depicted in more comic style and gets quite close to being explicit. The man in the foreground is delightfully drawn, long-legged and craggily handsome. He's not quite succeeding in covering his assets, but you have to look close, click to enlarge if required.

The two men inside the hut, ostensibly getting in some nettle thrashing practice, are obviously simulating a sexual position and the one on the bench seems to be signalling a preference with his dangling hand. But there's a curious twist to both bodies which shows balls resting on buttock if you look closely.

As hidden eroticism goes, this is pretty challenging. 

This image also flouts the existing order with man touching man's bottom in public and also in front of a (nosey) woman who's not outraged it seems but dismayed or even frightened. (Cue more Tom comparisons). I'm not quite sure what to make of the phallic cactus on her windowsill (balls and all, note). Perhaps it's a comment on female perceptions of men and their equipment, .

Presumably these are workmen but it might equally be an elopement scene with the ladder. I've seen a similar image based on the Rapunzel story, except that the rescuing hero is climbing past the window of the long haired maiden to reach the long haired man on the floor above. The political symbolism of ladders as escape devices needs no explanation. (Tom had his fences of course symbolising the opposite, entrapment and secrecy).

 

Bubentcov has a polished, more academic style as well. 

The faces he draws are infused with the same sense of masculinity and relaxed playfulness.

 

In the context of his Russian background, this image is a remarkable affirmation of homosexuality as a normal form of relationship and something beautiful, not just a method of sexual release. The combination of highly masculine stubble with delicate, almost feminine eyelashes and eyebrows goes further, making a provocative challenge to gender stereotyping. 

The style here is remarkably similar to that of RW Richards (below).

RW Richards - Amorous Cowboys

Artists often thrive in difficult circumstances, and it's good to see Bubentcov isn't surrendering to his.

I hope we will see much more art from this exciting new arrival on the scene.

For more visit the Bubentcov spread in 'Advocate'