Most Popular mitchmen Post of 2022

 

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The outright winner is an index which I created, linking to a series of posts at Metalbond featuring 11 brand new pictures by Brick. An earlier announcement about the first release of these new pictures also made this table at No 5. It celebrates a welcome return of a talented artist to the fetish art scene after a lengthy absence. The story shows two newcomers being inducted into the Academy. He doesn't seem to have lost any of his imaginative flair during the layoff and his technical skills are even better!

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Hot on Brick's heels was another 'old hand' - Kalabro with 'Slave Gang', a vibrant picture that picked up on the current vogue for slavery scenarios. I'm a long time admirer of this artist's dynamic 'ordeal' images but paradoxically this wasn't really one of them. 

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I posted a major, long-overdue retrospective of the work of Oztangles (2006-2022) at mitchmen blog during the year so it's not surprising to see two of the five articles near the top spot. I would normally have expected the lead article to do best, since I send people there if they want to read the whole series from the start. It's there but some way behind at No 6. Oz is another well-established artist and his gifted but sometimes puzzlingly uneven offerings made a fascinating project for me.

Gilgamesh gained two mid-table entries in the chart this year with his own unique brand of renders featuring heavily muscled protagonists whose maturity makes their plight all the more poignant as they are condemned to incarceration and torment in chains in dark, damp dungeons. He too started posting his images way back ca 2006, but his modern work shows a leap in intensity and realism since those early days and the dark story-telling, laden with menace and despair is engrossing. I suppose these hyper-masculine creatures are an acquired taste but there's an earthiness about them that makes them quite different to the bound hunks of J.F. and the youthful lust of 'Muscle' Matt. 

Ridley at No 8 is perhaps this year's wild card. His art, like Oztangles and Gilgamesh dates from the early years of rendering (ca 2005) and it seems surprisingly polished in retrospect. The milking theme that dominates the samples I posted is however a perennial favourite here at mitchmen so it's understandable why it's done so well.

 

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I also posted 5 articles featuring the work of Planet Gay at mitchmen in 2022, two made it into the chart and he is the top 'new wave' entry this year. He seems to have carved a niche for a sort of chocolate box style of bdsm art, with beautiful images showing delicious men being introduced to the delights of fetish practices in a way that seems surprisingly innocuous. Most of the articles were published too late in the year to make an impact in the table but the first got to 4th position and the second one squeezed in at No 18. It will be interesting to see how they fare in the longer term. His rankings of 2nd and 8th based on the 'rate of hits' shows how popular his work is.

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My year end reviews often do well in the following year's table and it's a phenomenon I don't really understand. I usually give credit to the lead image rather than my own writing and the marvellous Priapus image I was able to use to headline the all time winners post for 2021 this particular post justifies it's position at No 7. Priapus has a similar 'mild' approach to fetish scenarios as that of Planet Gay but has been around for a lot longer. His work seems to have become more adventurous of late and indeed, more prolific, miraculously without losing any of the artistic skills that have propelled him to the top of my all-time rankings. 

Another of these reviews came in at 13 topped by a picture drawn by the ever-popular Cavelo which doesn't disprove my theory although I admit that I'd like to think I have some followers with similar geeky interests to myself! Both of these articles would have finished lower down if I had applied a correction for their favoured position of piking up hits from the very first days of the year, their positions in the Hit Rate Rankings (column 4) suggest a more modest position would better reflect their popularity.

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Nestling just below the midway point of the table (at 12) is the solitary photograph-based post that managed to get into the top 20 for this year, but it's a good one - Dean Spencer's vintage bondage scene with Andrew Lennox in Can Am's 'Fetish Sex Fights 3'. Dean had a oddly alluring, 'pretty boy' sullenness that was great for bdsm bottoming and he had a notable career in the field. Dressing him in yellow rubber for this video was inspired and the uncluttered photography makes a good case for a fetish genre which is often submerged in over-elaborate overdressing. 

Royale Studio imagery topped last year's table but none of the 17 posts this year could repeat the trick. 'Airman's Gym Spanking' did best but it's score of 665 was well short of the top 20 cut. These posts made up 12% of the total articles published during the year and I am concerned that the Royale Project may be conflicting with the other aims of the blog. I will be making an announcement about this soon.

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The rest of the table is made up of a varied selection of newcomers. One of them Arsch at 10 is a hangover from last year when he just missed the cut. It features a familiar milking scenario so I'm not surprised that it continued to score in 2022, if fact it's score in 2022 alone would have got into this years table, so I decided to let it in for this year. I have adjusted it's score to take account of last year. 

I did consider other contenders from 2021 (e.g. Ehrlich - Lab Rat and Roa Part 4) but considered those artists were already adequately represented and other names deserved a chance. 

Ehrlik, however, does figure in the final quarter of the 2022 table but with a different post "The Blacksmith of Zambe". This is the latest in a string of posts about his work, all of which have struck a chord with readers here even though they are mostly fem dom not gay. The 'little boy lost' angle seems to go down a treat.

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Of the remainder, Penguin Frontier's 'Milking Outlet', was a simply conceived image with an arty finish and intriguing Sci-Fi back story. It made a spectacular debut, storming into the table with the top hit rate of the year. However, posted in late October, it's early days so I'm not predicting a new colossus has arrived  just yet!

The Spacron's renders and Damo's cartoonery are not ultra sophisticated but they are sexy and it's nice to see them representing different techniques in the table. Likewise St Jinx's more traditional draughtsmanship, his fantasy-based subject matter wouldn't normally be seen at mitchmen but his unusual crucifixion image which squeezed in at 20 is an elegant contribution to a niche genre that I suspect will be around in appreciative circles long after the artist's fairies have been forgotten.

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This year's table features articles based on photographs, comics, cartoons, renders and traditional art, another cavalcade of gay, artistic talent which testifies to the wealth of sexy, expressive art available to us in the age of the internet. Long may it continue!

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