A-Z of Artists Updated

Miloinvinculis - Dungeon Rack

I have updated the mitchmen A-Z of Artists to include those featured for the first time in the last 12 months at the blog.

see Miloinviculis article 

Dures-Annees - Sent to Buy a Belt

 see Dures-Annees (Hard Years) article

Blogger's Warning

Vincent - Animal Park

 Blogger has advised me that my A-Z of Fetish Artists' post, Vincent, has been put behind a warning, about the content. This happens occasionally when I publish new posts. This one has been sitting unremarked in my blog since 2016, but I made the mistake of updating the labels and that triggered the intervention. Often these warnings are baffling, considering this is an adult blog, but, to be fair, it's not hard to understand why in this case. 

However, I am struggling to understand what how this warning works in practice. It's my understanding that the whole blog is behind a sign-in wall, although I get the impression that blogger switches it on and off at whim. I can't tell because I'm signed in all the time.

I'd like to hear from readers what it is like, trying to access this blog, and this post, Vincent, in particular. 

Do you have to sign in to access the blog? 

Do you have to sign in again to access this article? 

Please let me know via the 'comments' facility at the foot of the pot - and enjoy Vincent  

Male Art by Fury Updated, Uncensored

 I have considerably updated and extended the old A-Z article on Ed Fury (aka Marc Ming Chan) with a number of more explicit pictures which take advantage of the more relaxed approach to nudity and sex allowable behind the sign-in barrier Blogger has imposed on this blog*. 

~

*I only became aware of this change a short while ago. It was triggered by my post on the Art of Cas. I had imagined that article to be pretty innocuous, but there was an image which could conceivably be seen as over-explicit or racially sensitive or legal age challenging - or all three. Who knows? Blogger doesn't say, but I wasn't sure the picture was by Cas anyway, so I removed it and the  amended post has not been queried - yet!

I don't object to Blogger putting the barrier there, although when I was a teenager access to the sort of material posted here would have been life-changing for me. However it shouldn't be viewed by younger kids and in any case the world is changing.

Update on Adonis Male

 I managed to access the mitchmen club at Adonis Male this morning using my tablet.

For some reason when I try to access via my PC I can get into AM but not the mitchmen Club.

The club galleries there are still being rebuilt so there's nothing to see at the moment.

My glimpse of the membership list suggests that memberships taken out since May 2023 have been lost but we'll see if that is truly the case when it is properly back on the air.

Royale Numbers & The Mystery Seller

 Many of the Royale images in circulation today have numbers in their corners. 
They have various formats, but what do they represent?

1. Numbers in White Boxes

Royale Studio - Catalogue Thumbnail Sheet for set 'W'

'

Numbers in bold characters which appear inside a white box in the bottom left corner are Royale's own numbers, used on their thumbnail sheets to show the sequence of the pictures and for customers to reference when ordering full size prints. 

I've yet to identify the soldier seen undressing in front of a mirror and getting down to exercise in Catalogue 'W'. It's a fairly typical Royale set with a genuine service uniform paired with Royale's ultra tight shorts. The routine of getting different 'real' men to perform the same, slightly embarrassing, erotic ritual is part of the appeal of Royale Studio's work.

Royale Studio - Navy Gash 08

Thumbnail pictures often turn up on their own having been cropped from the full sheet,

sometimes apparently with scissors!

The example above is from 'Navy Gash'

2. Numbers Inside White Circles

Royale Sailor Punished in Shorts 2

A lot of other pictures have smaller numbers inside little circles in the bottom left corner.

This example is from Royale 01 'More Sailors in the Rigging' 

Clearly 401 isn't a sequence number within a set, they usually only comprised 16 - 24 pictures.

They can't be Royale's unique identification numbers either, the values are are too low for that. The ones I have only go up to 401 but Royale produced dozens of sets. There are 117 just in the Catalogue Sheets I have, representing something like 3000 pictures.

So what are these circled numbers?

The pictures in my possession which have them come from various different Royale sets, so to get to the bottom of this conundrum, I collected together them altogether. There were 45 in all, all good quality scans of original photographs. Straightaway I could see from the filenames that they all came from Sailor Al's 'Originals' collection which was controversially released to the internet some years ago. 

(See footnote on Sailor Al in 'Sailors In The Rigging - 1b'). 

Pictures in beefcake magazines in Royale's time (1959-63) do not have these numbers,

although one turned up later. This points to an obvious answer, that these are simply the numbers 

that a collector used to identify the photographs he owned.

~

The next question is: - Do these numbers tell us anything about the sets they belong to?

For example, in Royale 01 'More Sailors in the Rigging' there is another photo, seemingly from the same set as 401 shown above, it's numbered 391 (below). Does this mean there are 9 pictures between these two in the original set?

Royale Sailor Punished in Shorts 1

Well, no, because in the collected group, 

I can see there are two pictures from other sets with numbers in-between 391 and 401, 

including the one below, 394

Royale - Footballer Punished

Just this one example tells us that the numbering is not meaningful. So even where 'runs' of pictures that look connected can be identified (e.g. a run of four images numbered 331-334 in Royale 93 Sailors Caned) that doesn't tell us for sure that they appear in that sequence, nor that they are even in the same set.

It's possible they were numbered in the order of their acquisition. Then small groupings of related images would occur because collectors could choose which of  the more expensive, larger prints they wanted from the thumbnail sheets like 'W' above.

3. Numbers inside Black Boxes

There is a further small group of 6 pictures which have white numbers inside black boxes, always accompanied by a star. These too can be traced back to the 'Originals' collection

It looks as if these stars have come from a sticker sheet (notice how it overlaps the number). The numbers are probably stickers too (remember this is pre-computers!). The circled numbers just discussed are probably the same because the numbers on them slant at various angles. Perhaps sheets of numbered stickers were specially produced in those days for collectors of all sorts and I guess businesses would have a use for them too. 

As it happens, the picture above (107) from 'Sailors in the Rigging' also exists with circle style numbering - and it's a different number, 279 (see below). 

 The existence of duplicate copies with different numbers suggests that they were originally from two different collections which ended up being merged to form the 'Originals'. These photos were considered to be porn and were publicly unsaleable through normal channels, so passing on complete collections to other, like-minded individuals was the only safe way of disposing of them. That was how collections came to be merged.

Sailor Al told me that he acquired most of his collection from a man who had worked with 'Guys in Uniform' Studio and had previously been connected with Royale. That might explain the large size of the collection. It's possible he may have rescued them when they were raided or wound up. 

 

Thanks to this provenance, the 'Originals' collection also includes a number of pictures from Guys in Uniform (confusingly the scans have been given filenames with MIU numbers, for Men In Uniform). Two of these, that I know of, have 'black' numbers in their corners, see below. It's not a purely Royale phenomenon.

 

 

A 'Guys in Uniform' image with a black, corner reference number, 47

 

This seems to prove conclusively that the numbers were put on the pictures by a collector. 

Postscript

Royale Models photo in Bonham's Auction

Collecting all my numbered Royale pictures into one folder for this investigation threw up one completely unexpected result. I found some of them were duplicated by images I had acquired quite recently from the catalogue of a  sale of Basil Clavering pictures at Bonhams (Jun 2021). Five images reproduced in the Bonhams' listing had circled numbers in their corners and 3 of them duplicated images I already had (the one shown above was one I didn't have). 

It seems this sale must have been of Sailor Al's 'Originals' collection. 

The provenance Bonhams gave closely matches the story I had been told by him (see above). 

The sale raised £22,000 for around 850 prints plus negatives etc. About a third of that amount was the buyer's premium (the auction house's commission). I don't know who the actual seller was in the end, but I hope the new owner of these pictures will share more of them with us all. 

News - The Mighty Foo

The Mighty Foo - Fire!

The Mighty Foo tells me he has now produced a story which draws together the threads of his highly developed fantasy of a world where soldiers go into battle with their male lovers and where death and sexual feelings are inextricably linked. Two such heroes, captured during a reconnaisance mission face execution, but it's a rite which must be conducted strictly in accordance of the exacting laws of the ancient Gods. It's a rite that tests them all. The story is copiously illustrated with some new and some previously published images. Be warned that some scenes are very graphic.

Read ' The Lover's Execution' at FetLife (free membership, request friend status)

Read the two part, mitchmen Review of Foo's Art

News: Teddy of Paris

Teddy of Paris - Passion du Fruit

 

 Teddy has been in touch to say he's planning to launch a Patreon page. It's good to see him returning to the scene. I will update at mitchmen when I know more. You can read his correspondence attached to the 2014 mitchmen review of Teddy's work.

Royale Studio 2c, Navy Romeo, The Cast

 One of the puzzles of the Royale, Navy Romeo series is the bewildering changes in the appearance and build of the actors from one scene to another. For example, is the handsome Ted (far right in picture 14 of Part 1) the same person as we see emerging from the car in picture 16 (Part 2)? Is Spike, seen also in picture 14 (centre) the same Spike we see taunting Ted in picture 28 and later departing the scene in picture 36? Are any of the men in Part 1 actually the same as those in Part 2? Or were these Parts produced separately and married together which the discontinuities in style and plot seem to suggest?

Even allowing for the imperfect quality of most of the surviving images, we rarely see clear, close-up pictures of the men's faces in this series, despite their military pedigrees they don't even have tattoos, which are normally a great aid to identification.

However, Royale also published a series labeled 'DTS' which they said featured the same 3 men (see catalogue note below). It consisted of 20 pictures, but most of them seem to have been lost

Royale Studio - 'DTS' Catalogue Thumbnail Image, DTS01

In the thumbnail you can see they are wearing similar uniforms to the men in NARO with one in boots and gaiters

Royale generally used the initials of the actor's/model's names in set ID's, except when it had a story code, like NARO. There's no obvious clue to such a title in the DTS catalogue blurb (although it might mean Drilling Three Sailors, I suppose). S here could represent Spike and T Tom or Ted but who is D? It serves to seed a more doubts about identities

 

Royale Studio - DTS02 Garden Trio

The catalogue description refers to a garden setting for some of the DTS pictures. This is presumed by me to be one of them, it's clearly the same three men as the DTS thumbnail, looking very hunky in clinging Royal Navy shirts. The garden setting points to a connection with NARO Part 2 and it's quite easy to identify them individually there.

Tom, (on the left), presents fewest ID problems, we see a lot of his face in Part 2 (pictures 17, 18, 32) and it's clearly the same man. He's also wearing the same distinctive white shoes.

Ted (in the middle) is plausibly, the same Ted we see being pulled out of the car (in 16) and being manhandled in 17 and 18. His face is not really seen clearly after that in Part 2 apart from the NARO thumbnail (numbered as picture 23) but that Ted isn't obviously the same man, despite his similar curly hair and the distinctive gaiters and boots.

Spike (on the right) is a pretty good match for Spike in 17, 31 and 36, complete with white shoes.

Having linked names to faces, if Ted is 'D', Tom is 'T' and Spike is 'S', then the left to right sequence of the men in the thumbnail photo at the top of the post exactly matches the title, DTS. Convinced? No, I'm not sure either!

~

Spike has a slightly different look in the water-throwing pictures in Part 2 (e.g 24, 25), where the slicked-down, dark hair at the back of his head doesn't seem to fit with the light curls we see tumbling from under his cap in the front views (just above). However his eyes in 24 do match those in 31. In this and other pictures of Spike in Part 2, (e.g. 21, 22), he does have curls at the front, but it's layered elsewhere and fairly well greased (perhaps with a contemporary product called Brycreem) which would explain the darkening. 

1950's Hair Care (featuring cricket star, Dennis Compton)

The water-throwing images also seem to feature a different-looking Ted. I suppose it's conceivable these images were re-shot with different models but I can't find any obvious clues for that, except perhaps the strangely altered roping in 28 where Spike's face also appears particularly different. However there is a detail in 28 that does link Spike from NARO 2 into the DTS group and it is brought out in the better quality version below

Royale Studio - DTS03 Three Bare-Top Sailors

This is a version of the thumbnail picture with the legs cropped out. Ted and Tom look a bit glum, like criminals in a line-up. Perhaps it's those wet trousers to blame, Ted's are particularly unflattering although they do all look nicely laundered in this image.

Spike is the only one who seems to be keen to make the most of breaking into the world of modeling. Notice that he has a characteristic way of resting his left hand on his thigh, hooking his thumb into the front flap of his sailor's trousers. It helps to accentuate his 'bulge' here of course, but Spike in NARO 2 strikes the same pose in 28 and in the 'gloating pictures' 31 and 32. 

 

Linking The Cast Members In Parts 1 and 2

Spike's hand-on-thigh pose also appears in NARO Part 1, in picture 14 and the DTS picture above gives us other circumstantial evidence for linking to Spike into both Parts 1 and 2 – it's the tiny tear on his right thigh (which I pointed out in my Part 2 commentary), it's visible in both NARO 1 (10 ) and NARO 2 (21) as well as this DTS picture. Having said that, Spike is not the only man who wears these split trousers, more of that in later articles.

Unfortunately none of the model's faces are seen clearly in Part 1, many of the pictures show only back views and the rest are mostly oblique angles or otherwise obscured. 

The best shots of Spike are 09 and 14 but these are not very helpful in identifying him as the man in the picture above (apart from the curly hair in 09). However the eye and cheek area seen in the rear, three quarter views in 03 and 04 could credibly be the same man we see in the gloating images of Part 2. The tiny glimpse of his face reflected in the mirror in 08 is also unexpectedly persuasive, when seen in the original image.

Incidentally, Spike is wearing dark shoes in the Part 1 pictures e.g. 08, 14 and in the DTS thumbnail above. But he wears white shoes in the Garden trio also above and throughout Part 2. This tiny discontinuity supports the theory that Parts 1 and 2 were created in separate shoots.

Tying Ted into Part 1 is also problematic thanks again to the lack of clear, full face shots. There are two glimpses of him where there is a fair amount of similarity, however - in picture 05 and in the mirror reflection in picture 02. Like Spike his dark hair is confusing here (again possibly the result of using a greasy hair product like Brylcreem!). There is other circumstantial evidence linking his appearances in Parts 1 and 2 - the gaiters, of course, but also Ted's chunky build in picture 04 is a good match for his figure in No 34 in Part 2. His very different appearance in 14, which first triggered my doubts on this identification issue, also pairs reasonably with well with the way he looks in No 31.

Tom's identfication is easy in Part 2 but in Part 1 it is the most difficult of all to verify. The nearest we get to a decent shot of his face is a series of indistinct profiles (e.g. 03) in which he looks much more lean and youthful than the frontal images in DTS and NARO2. However we can see his dark, curly hair and there is something of that lean look in the rear view of him seen in 19 from Part 2 (extreme left). 

But just when the identity issue seems (more or less) resolved up pops this...........

 

Royales Studio - DTS04 Sailors Sitting On A Bench

This is the only other DTS-like image I have found and you can spot Ted (left) and Spike (centre) right away, However the man on the right is scarcely recognisable as Tom apart from his hair. Spike's dark shoes link this photo to the NARO 1 shoot, where Tom did appear to have a relatively gaunt appearance, but he doesn't look like this at all in the DTS thumbnail at the top which is also linked to NARO 1. 

It's possible this is just a trick of the lighting, I guess. You can see he's strongly lit from one side. There could also have been a different shoot with another man in Tom's place but that doesn't seem likely, Perhaps he's simply a 4^th man who happened to temporarily join in the DTS shoot, a technician or visitor perhaps who wanted to try his hand at being a wet sailor! This might even be a previously unknown shot of Basil Clavering or of Scott the photographer, who knows?

~

Royale Studios - Catalogue Thumbnail for set TOH

Like other Studios, Royale produced solo sets of most of their models and we have a thumbnail (but nothing else) from the one that Tom posed for, labeled 'TOH'. The photographer has cannily chosen an upward looking viewpoint to make the most of the carefully-prepared crotch area. This open legged stance, very masculine and suggestive of confrontation and simmering belligerence, is typical of Royale's output

The catalogue blurb tells us that the model's full name is Tom Harding and he appears in several other Royale sets as we shall soon see. Tom's wearing his Navy kit again here but these solo shoots were often pure beefcake sessions in swimming trunks or posing straps and these sometimes turn up on vintage beefcake sites, sometimes under different model names. However, I've not found any examples of Tom in this form yet.

 

Royale Studios - Catalogue Thumbnail for set SPM

This thumbnail is supposedly for Spike's solo set, full name Spike Millican. Despite the corroborating evidence of the catalogue entry below, it's very hard to see this man as the boyish Spike from the closing scenes of NARO 2 although he does have the same tousled hair at the front and the same distinctive cleft chin. 

His gaunt look here is rather like “Tom's” shocking appearance in the bench trio but I'm pretty sure it's not that man. It's the same side lighting effect though and unusually for Royale, his whole crotch area is hidden in shadow bar a suggestive 'ridge'. From his face and stance it looks almost as though he's just had a bucket of water tossed over him. Or perhaps it's his modeling - or romantic - aspirations which have just been doused.

I've not found a reference for Spike in any other Royale set and there is a simple explanation for this last puzzle, but I will reserve that for the next post!

 I've not found a solo shoot for Ted in the Royale Catalogues despite his attractive muscular build, nor any other mention of him in other Royale sets. I'm still wondering if he has another identity as 'Dave' or 'Dennis'!

The Royale Series continues next time with 'Navy Gash' (link pending)

~

On-going Upgrade of Royale Studio Posts at mitchmen

 

The original mitchmen Royale series (2010) is currently being extensively revised and extended.
This completely new article is the 3rd post in the 'Navy Romeo' Set, together they replace the original Royale post No 2.

To see which articles have been revised to date, please check the 'Come and Get It!' post. I occasionally revisit these articles with further, minor upgrades which are logged there by dates.

The next article in this series is Royale Studio 3 - Navy Gash

Read the new series of Royale Studio articles at mitchmen from the start:-
Royale 1 - Sailors Flogged in the Rigging

You can access all the old and the new and revised articles
simply by clicking on the 'GIU/Royale' label at the foot of this post

 

'mitchmen' Royale Studio Open Archive

 
As an adjunct to the on-going article upgrade I am gradually creating an archive housing my entire collection of Royale images. I have added this latest image to the existing Royale 01 'Sailor in the Rigging' folder at the mitchmen Royale Studio Open Archive and if you follow the link below you will find there's also a new zip file there which includes them all for easy downloading. 

 

The Royale Studio Open Archive at mitchmen blog

mitchmen archive for:-Royale Studio, Navy Romeo & DTS

  Please tell me via my profile link if you have any difficulty downloading 

 

~

If you have any other Royale images from this or previously published groups and would like to add them to the mitchmen Open Archive please contact me via my profile page link. 

 

A Footnote On Amalaric's 'Cruel Justice'

Amalaric - The Wizard

I wrote in the last post about how the severe punishments meted out to Steve Delgado, Doogie and the Slaves of Oz had made me think about why we are drawn to these stories and about our 'limits'. 'The Wizard' (above) is here to impart wisdom to this discussion but his butch appearance and super erotic loin cloth suggests a very simple answer:- it's entertaining and sexy to see men in danger, particularly when they are not fully clad (it's also perfectly normal, just ask Daniel Craig fans!). However Amalaric's captors usually take the captives way beyond the threat of danger and he describes at length what is only touched upon in Bond movies, namely sustained bodily attack.

Of course, we all approach these tales from our own personal perspective, but it's probably common to see this treatment as a sort of rough sport, like Boxing, American Football or Rugby. A sport which is character-building and which the recipients should be well capable of handling and still come back for more, just as sportsmen do.

Indeed, in some of the stories the men virtually volunteer their services in exchange for escaping the law or some other imperative or, naively, just to prove their mettle (John in Jarheads, Part 5). In other cases men are just 'picked on' to suffer, but we can view the arbitrary selection process as a 'shit happens' aspect of life that we are only too familiar with ourselves, thank you very much.

Deep inside, we know their tormentors are really genuine admirers (like us) who only want the men for their male qualities and (unlike us) just happen to have the power and inclination to take whatever they want. Those taken are not expected to like what happens to them, although Ric in 'Jarheads' (Part 5) seems to hope they might – eventually. But besides the unpleasantness there's a streak of fair play and compassion in their treatment, of 'order' in fact, that respects the captive's manhood, humanity and his right to life - if not his right to freedom for the time being. As they say, what doesn't kill you leaves you stronger, although I would hesitate to suggest these men should be grateful for an opportunity to serve in an Amalaric experience.

The characters in the 'Cruel Justice' stories have all earned retribution (at least they have in the eyes of their tormentors but we can see there's an element of doubt about just how much retribution they have earned). In any case they are not given any choice in the matter, there's no sense of fair play and the outcomes are pretty extreme. Arguably Dave in '24 Hours' is in the same boat at the height of his suffering and other characters certainly suffer extreme examinations too, but they do survive them.

Rob Tells Of His Shame

These are just fantasies and the people in them are not real so Amalaric doesn't usually ask us to consider the consequences for the abductee. Apart from, that is, from a striking chapter in 'Bobby', whose first victim, Jim, experiences something of a breakdown after he is released and, in a moving epilogue, is nursed through it by a compassionate, gay friend (see 'Bobby' Chapter 4 at Aquadude Bunker).

In 'Oz' and 'Steve Delgado', Amalaric shows us the captives' humanity less directly, we simply see their undeserved suffering at the hands of ruthless wielders of power who are (fortunately) not at all like us – i.e. the uncaring, exploitative inhabitants of Oz and the repellent, corrupt Sheriff  (whose return in a different persona to torment Doogie is instrumental for me in dragging that story into this group too). As gay men we are only too well aware of this sort of oppression and I found myself getting off the bench of neutrality for once to sympathise with the victims.

Of all these stories, Oz presents us with a particularly challenging outcome, confronting head on the question of what happens when the owner/keeper no longer wants his captive. Usually Amalaric leaves that question hanging (so to speak). Sometimes he resolves it by selling the problem on to someone else, preferably abroad (e.g. Ric sells Rob in 'Jarheads'), sometimes he consigns them to indefinite detention (as a slave for Coach Devereaux or for Steve it's a long prison sentence). Occasionally escape happens, but more often freedom is given with a 'gagging deal' to avoid repercussions (e.g. Ryan in 'Bobby' and Todd Sanders). In Oz, however, it seems the end result for all the rebel, former slaves is very simply to be a painful death.

The possibility of death as an outcome for those who (for one reason or another) cannot be freed is occasionally hinted at in a number of the other stories (e.g. Party Animals) or it may occur to the victim himself, forming part of his torment (e.g. Devereaux in 'Academy Thugs', Dave in '24 hours'). However in general we only hear of deaths actually happening in war or at the hands of judicial forces (See 601, The Reprobate and 602, The Barbarian King in Part 6). The deaths are not usually described, the (bloodless) crucifixion in Oz is matched by only one other explicit execution to my knowledge, another tragic crucifixion scene, described but not illustrated in the early, Roman Slave story 'Army Deserter'.

Both of these are secondary characters, but in Oz we also see a large group of leading men, with whom we strongly identify, all set to suffer an unpleasant death, separately or together and it's chilling. This dramatic effect is enhanced by the fact that the erotic temperature in this piece is on a very low simmer and less distracting than usual. The only significant sexual passage results in a nasty death that is the turning point of the story, so there's little comfort there! Amalaric's audacious cannibalisation of the 'Gay' Land of Oz gives this satire a double-edged bite and the child fantasy connections in the story (like the Joker in 'Batman') infuse it all with a mocking sense of madness that is all pretty disturbing. These elements set Oz apart from the other stories. There's a seriousness about it that gets through to us, but all these stories teach us quite a lot about ourselves and our limits.

Part 7 of 'The Art of Amalaric' will follow in a few days

 

Most Popular Posts Listing - A Change In Method

Naked Thinker

At this time of year it is my custom to review the posts for the year just ended to see which attracted the most visitors. This year I have changed my approach to try and produce a more representative selection. For this year's list I have included some posts from the previous year (2018) which were published too late in that year to impact on the list. I have evened out the distortions caused by different publication dates by ranking them all based on a time- averaged hit rate*. The full result is shown and discussed in Most Popular Posts of 2019, this article explains the new methodology

Rationale for change of method

I have agonised in recent years about the arbitrary nature of this annual survey. As it is simply based on accumulated hit counts, the timing of publication significantly affects the opportunity to score and hence the position in the table. Thoroughly deserving posts often don't get chosen at all. Typically posts after mid year don't have enough time to register anywhere in the top 20. Wrestling Arsenal (December 2018) was a startling and unique exception last time, but notable recent anomalies were 'BuiltByTallSteve' and Chirenon's 'A New Life For Our Airforce Boys' both published in late 2017. Neither of these got a mention in their year of publication despite turning in a top 10 performance in their first 12 months.

This year (2019) nothing after July made the cut based on total hits. At the other end of the scale several posts from December 2018 registered counts during 2019  that would have got them into the top 20 in any year since records began (as they say) had their publication date been more favourable.

To address these issues I have cast my net a little wider this year, looking right back to mid 2018 to see if any of those posts ought to be recognised. Based on my usual criteria (i.e. considering 2019 posts only) the cut-off point for inclusion in the 2019 top 20 would have been 475 total hits or if I based the selection on an average hit rate* that irons out duration differences, the cut would have been 617 hits per year (pa).

I compiled a short list of posts from 2019 and the second half of 2018 which met both these criteria but excluding those that had previously made it into the 2018 chart. This gave me a list of 23 posts in total which left me some scope for 'tweaking' anomalies in the final top 20. 

The cut-off figures of the top 20 in this selection were lifted by about 10%  by this process, but for the top 23 they were exactly the same as they would have been under the old method. This is because the 2018 additions in the new list were offset by the loss of 2019 posts which met the total count criteria but had taken much longer to reach it.

Under this new method, late posts from 2019 still get excluded, but they have a second chance of inclusion next year when they have proven more durable appeal.

The table below shows all the affected articles listed in order of total hits since publication
2018 articles brought in under the new method are shown in red italics.
2019 articles excluded under the new method are shown in green
Column 2 shows how the table would have looked under the old system.
I discuss the results after the table.

Old Style Table Based on total hits since publication
New Rank	Old Rank	Title	Hits	Publication
1	1	Milking Factories – 4	2820	Jan
2		Homoeros Gallery	2288	Dec '18
3		Wrestling Arsenal	1697	Dec '18
4	2	IFNB is most popular new 'mitchmen' post of 2018	1302	Jan
5	3	Kasee's Wrestling Humiliation	1269	Mar
6		The Art of Ivan Bubentkov	1176	Dec '18
7	4	Milking Factories No 5 – The Development Lab	1166	May
8		The Art of Bowen	1051	Sep '18
9		Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 4) – Unlucky in War	1031	Aug '18
10		The Art of Colt 1	1002	Nov '18
11	5	The Art of Ephorox	938	May
12		Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 8) – Bizarre Brutality 2	701	Dec '18
13	6	Milk Outlets	690	Jun
14	7	The Art Of Oscar Waldes	639	May
15	8	Most popular 'mitchmen posts of all time (end 2018)	605	Jan
16	9	The Art of Hasegawa (New)	602 est	Jun
17	10	The Humiliation of Ray	544	Feb
18	11	The Art of German Twister	539	July
19	12	Mitchell's Fetish Art for April – Sports Star Captured	537	Apr
	13	Cavelo is most visited 'mitchmen' post during 2018	528	Jan
20	14	Get Carter!	520	May
	15	A-Z on Brick Revised	518	Jan
	16	Mitchell's Fetish Art for Jan – Devil's Work	505	Jan
21	17	Seamus O'Reilly, Beautifully Bound in 'Simon's Night In' Part 2	504	Mar
	18	Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 9) – Bizarre Brutality 3	489	Jan
22	19	Taken Off The Streets - 1	486	Apr
23	20	The Art of Turquine (Update 1)	475	Apr

Stats collected on 31st December 2019

This table vividly demonstrates the effect of publication timing once again, with nothing after July 2019 making the cut and the first seven posts published in 2019 all getting in. Unsurprisingly the older, newly-included 2018 posts do well in this basic hit count table, but the top 2 posts are actually the same under the new system too with the same winner romping away with the title
 (see final MPP ranking article for 2019).

The three 2019 articles excluded from the table by the new criteria are shown in green above. All these articles had a full 12 months to make their score so replacing them with three far better performers from December 2018 is not an earth-shattering injustice. I scored a bit of an own goal by excluding No 16, but the 'War Comic' article that's linked to it gets into the new ranking at No 9 so I'm happy with that.

The winning total of 2820 comfortably exceeds last years record by IFNB of 2519 by about 12%, but this primarily reflects a longer scoring period (12 months for Milking Factories vs 9 for IFNB). Also, total visits to the site increased by 24%. this year so this performance probably doesn't count as a meaningful 'record'.

The full final results produced by the new system come out slightly different and are discussed in Most Popular Posts of 2019

*The Average (Annualised) hit rate was calculated as follows

(Total Hits) divided by (Days since Publication) multiplied by 365 (days in a year)

This does not produce a 'real' number, the formula reduces the counts of articles that have been around more than a year and inflates those published less than 12 months ago but they end up on a level playing field for comparison purposes.

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

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!