Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Mike

Mike - 'Dave Trussed'

-->

Mike who? I have at least 5 artists who go by this name including the well known, present day cartoonist and magazine illustrator who produces remarkably erotic pictures, but not fetish ones.

 .

The 'Mike' represented here produces drawings which are notable for the realistic proportions of the men's anatomy - including the sex organs. The detailing appears to be sketchy but is appropriate for the natural physique of the young subjects. I have darkened this picture slightly to bring out the subtle shading. His view of bodies as sexual objects seems to veer towards slenderness and plasticity rather than bulk and voluptuous curves. The facial detail is often slightly odd and combined with the smoothness of skin suggested by the delicate shading creates a strange ghostly appearance. The solid black background merely serves to accentuate this.

.

The pictures I have seen are understated but explore a wide range of fetish topics like bondage, waxing, gags and whips etc. This example is the most interesting and is not only well drawn (check out the fingers) but brings out the anxiety of the subject in a rather striking way.

I don't have any link info for this artist.

To see earlier posts in this series click A-Z in the label list below

A-Z Update - Les and Micro

I have added two links to the articles on Les and Micro, they take you to articles by FRGLee on his blog which give a bit of biography and extra pictures by these artists. Well worth a read.

Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Micro

Micro - The Suit

Micro is one of those artists whose fetish fame is maintained essentially by one picture which circulates endlessly on the internet. The long blond hair of the novice is the best guide to it's age (other pictures by him feature greasy haired rockers and Tom-like cops in billowing trousers).

The interest resides mainly in the clothing (if that's the right word!) and the immersion chamber threat. It's not exactly explicit but the glimpse of naked buttock cleavage, the frontal bulge and the rear connection of the gas mask tube place us firmly in adult territory. There's something for everyone here from swimming trunks (a surprisingly rare sighting!) to full diving suits and I must not overlook the large boots (and feet) which convincingly straddle the gap between realism and absurdity. The composition is a little stilted but the leer of the handsome 'master' is excellent and the suits well drawn and detailed.

There's an article with more pictures at Frglee , this blog also features diving suits, rubber boots etc.

I don't have any other link info for this artist.

To see earlier posts in this series click A-Z in the label list below

Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Mentaiko

Mentaiko - Captive

-->

I have admitted before, my own shortcomings when it comes to identifying Japanese cartoon artists. It doesn't help that their work often circulates unlabelled but I have never taken time to understand the subject better. However, their contribution to fetish art is so significant that I must mention them when I can.

Mentaiko's work has a pleasing, erotic plasticity in the crucial body areas, I love the shiny buttocks and bulging white loincloth of this captive although the rubbery texturing doesn't work quite so well on his ripped clothing. It's the bondage of course that makes this picture so sexy, the awkward and exposed position and the realistic, strong-looking ropes that snake round his contours. The creasing of the twisted white cloth as it passes between his buttocks is delightfully suggestive. The youth of the subject and, to a lesser extent the fantasy scenario is not really my cup of tea (though it's pretty uncontroversial in this case) but the erotic quality of the artwork is remarkable.

This type of art appears on GMBA (link at foot of sidebar) fairly regularly, but it's usually unattributed. There are plenty of Yaoi groups who specialise in this art and that is a good place to look for more information.

To see earlier posts in this series click A-Z in the label list below

Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Mike Carcel

In retrospect, I wish I had filed Mike Carcel under 'C' but he always signs himself MCarcel so here he is jostling with all the other 'M's. Mike is a very prolific artist who often depicts fairly extreme and exotic subjects such as impalement, piercing, mutilation, hangings, crucifixion and even bloodier stuff which is much too extreme to show here at mitchmen.

MCarcel - Pony Boy Races

Early pictures show individuals in exotic and imaginative bondage and humiliation. The 'Pony Boy Races' is a simple but imaginative take on the Pony humiliation theme and hangs on to the masculinity of the characters in a way that compares favourably with Leo's well known Pony image (see earlier mitchmen A-Z post) which is much more elaborate and camp. The bowed heads and dribbling mouths are absolutely typical of Carcel's imagery.

MCarcel - Nailman Busy

His later works tend to show show groups of men carrying out and undergoing much more painful and gruesome S&M activities, and I use this description (rather than tortures) because the victims appear to be consenting or at least unprotesting of their fate - extreme as it might be. In 'Nailman Busy' the crucified man is excited enough to distract his torturer from his proper job, reversing their impalement roles. This rather subtle, black humour is another of Carcel's hallmarks.

His characters are usually good-looking men with realistic, attractive bodies and (as in Nailman) they are often shown pausing in their activity to gaze out of the picture, as though posing for a camera (which I imagine reflects the source inspiration but it's obvious that the artist has made a conscious choice to keep it that way). It creates an eerie sensation of having stumbled on some incomprehensible brutal ritual with the captors proudly posing next to their handiwork happily unaware of it's true horror. You can see in this picture how Carcel composes by assembling different images together and the individual viewpoints and perspectives are actually slightly different. It doesn't seem to detract from the impact of the finished picture.

MCarcel - Slave Pen

Mike's pen and ink sketches are well drawn with close attention to the details of anatomy. He uses cross hatching rather than solid greys to depict shadows and in his later pictures this is used quite sparingly. His technique shows fine body hair particularly well but the compositions are often crowded and the absence of depth shading and background perspective can cause visual confusion at first sight. A few moments study are needed to unravel the detail.

'Slave pen' has a similar montage style to 'Nailman' but the overall fan-like composition is fascinating. The tethering together of the two foreground prisoners has an almost religious artistry about it that gives the picture interest and weight, although pious acceptance and resignation on the part of victims is normal in Mike's world. Most of Carcel's pictures contain at least one little gem of bondage like these. This detached, almost academic treatment and the use of simple outlines may explain why his pictures often seem less shocking than they should.

MCarcel - Michal's Mistake

His men are invariably naked and as a result there is rarely much evidence of a scenario or personal motivations, just men ceremonially torturing and executing other men. The exceptions are those pictures which show Native American Indians torturing their captives. These pictures often include details of the Indian's camp as well as their garments. The introduction of this tangible, cultural detail and it's associations certainly add to the impact and this particular scenario gives full rein to Carcel's inventiveness and cruelty - adding arrows, fire, scalping and even flaying to his armoury.

Mike inks over and then erases pencilled originals to produce his final picture and you can see that some detail gets lost in this process - around eyes for example and the knees in 'Slave Pen'. The active participants in the pictures are often shedding copious amounts of body fluids from orifices and wounds which I suspect looks more subtle in the pencilled original than the inked final version. I prefer the earlier 'Pony Boys' style but truthfully the power of his imagery transcends technique.

~

Mike has produced hundreds of pictures over the years, and I wouldn't even attempt to work out a favourite or claim this to be a representative sample of his work. There should be some at the GMBA archives (link at foot of sidebar) and the MCR Yahoo Group (is, as of 2022, defunct)

However, there's another post of Mike's pictures on mitchmen blog here (added March 2013)

 

To see earlier posts in this mitchmen series click A-Z in the label list below

Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Max

Max - Man in bondage
Max is a modern French comic artist and his work combines stylish technique and attractive imagery. His subject matter is strong on bondage and domination. This picture of a simply bound man with distinctively Gallic features is smouldering with eroticism. The images are sometimes laced with golden showers and cages but there is no leather or rubber, just nudity, sometimes set against severely geometric backgrounds constructed with tiles, stone blocks and cage bars.

Max - Stone Steps

Max shows characters interacting in a powerful way, sometimes simply wrestling, but the more interesting images depict out-and-out domination and he uses bondage to amplify this in a way few artists do. Contrast the drama of the 'Stone Steps' picture with Matt's more typical cowboy bondage (previous post) where the captor is barely glimpsing the possibilities of his power.

Max forces his victim to kneel on a scaffold-like plinth, he uses an upward looking angle and dark shadowing to enhance the sense of the captor's threatening strength, at the same time explicitly displaying for us the captive's sexual purpose. This is more than just a crude 'in your face' visual signal, however, for the man's exaggerated anal opening is at the centre of an 'X' shape formed by the gently curving lines of his inner thighs and upper buttocks. The upper left hand arm of the 'X' flows smoothly into the arc of his captor's penis linking the two together unambiguously. The curving line of the two men's shoulders and arms has an equally satisfying shape giving the composition a coherence which shows true artistry.
 
Interestingly, Max claims on his website that his pictures are not gay, just about fierce men. Matt's cowboy picture from an earlier era is trying to maintain a similar distinction.
Ah! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
(The more things change, the more they stay the same!)

Max - Rainbow County (detail)

There's a simplicity of approach in Max's pictures which produces striking results. The Dream Sequence extract from 'Rainbow County' shows a man being tied up. The cap-obscured faces of his captors and a few words of dialogue create a powerful sense of subjugation, fear and foreboding. The rope wound around the victim's neck heightens the danger. This is the essence of bondage - the loss of control, the loss of defences.

In his pictures Max often plays with highlighting and employs an unusual style in which the muscle shapes and areas of light and shade are delineated by contour lines like those used on a map. In Rainbow County it creates a multi-layered effect of angled flat planes giving a sense of bodies carved from a block. In other examples, the results range from giving the appearance of camouflage or of fractured rock to a not quite human, metallic sheen on the skin. The spooky effect is enhanced by the shaven heads and futuristic settings.

Max - Tubes
This theme develops into sci-fi world of scientific experiments with tubes and cables attached and inserted into the helpless captives. Scenes of post apocalyptic destruction are populated with men with partial bodies placed on plinths like statues or pierced by metal struts and incorporated into unidentifiable devices or ruins. It's imaginative and fascinating and I could devote a whole blog to discussing it. In the meantime I can only suggest you go and have a look at the website which has lots of pix at onemaxshow.

One of the reasons for posting these articles is to encourage readers (and myself!) to look more closely at fetish art, to notice and enjoy its 'hidden depths'. In this respect the art of Max is a revelation, an economical mix of technical skill, thoughtfulness and sheer erotic power which is rarely encountered. Bravo!

To see other posts in this series click A-Z in the label list below

Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists - Matt (of Sado Island)

Matt - Ball Grabbin'

Matt must be one of the best known and easily recognisable gay artists, but though popular, he doesn't seem to attract the dedicated fetish following of some others like Cavelo. He is well known for his craggy faced men with prominent cheek bones and cleft chins. His usual style is comic-like and quite austere with thick lines and hard delineation of muscles, it's not especially sensual. However, in the wrestling picture above, his use of situation and detail (like the hairy chest and leotard-clad butt cheeks) is very sexy.
(I suspect the colouring of this picture is not original.)

Matt - Cowboy Bondage

  .

Cowboys and wrestlers often feature as subjects and provide some of his best figure drawing, the cowboy bondage shown here is sensitively done. This posed composition with disinterested captive and captor's thoughtful look is reminiscent of Luger's slyly suggestive work, almost a pastiche in fact, but there's a slightly harder fetish edge. Other pictures in this series depict branding and sharing of 'warm beer' in the same disarming way.

.

Matt - Cop Rescue

 

Bondage and other fetish themes are usually present in his pictures, but his approach is often playful and cartoony. Sex organs are exaggerated and prominent, and the characters often have smiles - but the subject matter is likely to be equally amenable to less frivolous interpretation - like the two cops above who discover a naked man tied to a bed and immediately unzip. This is a good example of humour 'defusing' a superbly erotic psychological situation. It's a matter of taste, of course, but I prefer not to mix the two.

Matt - Sado Island 08

  .

This lightness may detract from the appreciation of Matt's extensive, serious leather and S&M material, which is unexpectedly flavoured with masks, heavy strapping and oversize boots. The fantasy story, 'Sado Island', is perhaps his most significant piece in this genre. It follows the fortunes of two lovers caught up in a struggle between two sadistic regimes and learning to enjoy their endless brutal 'training' and punishment. There are some memorable images like the suspension punishment shown here and imaginative inventions - like the tubular glass punishment cells (not shown) but it doesn't sustain quite the same level of invention or thoughtfulness as Leo's story of 'The Estate'.

Matt isn't really thought of as a fetish artist, but he deserves to be much more highly regarded for the sheer range and power of his subject matter if not so much for his technique. I don't know of a dedicated website. You should find his work in the GMBA archives, but because of his humorous approach he often turns up in other general gay art groups too.

 

see also Mitchell's 'Matt' Archive

  .

To see earlier posts in this series, click A-Z in the label list below