Royale Studio is Top New Post of 2021

 

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The outright winner is 'Come and Get It!', the lead article for the new 'mitchmen' Open Archive of Royale Studios' military erotica from the 1960's. This victory is a bit of a cheat because I have been re-issuing this post every time I add a new folder to the Archive, so the total will include repeat visits picking up the updates. 

The score of 2304 for the top post is a lot less than Brosfate's record of 3407 last year and the 2019 winner 'Milking Factories 4' which scored 2820, but they were both exceptionally popular posts and it's a perfectly respectable winning score in a longer term context. 

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The runner up is the lead article for 'The Art of Roa' series, helped no doubt by the outstanding crucifixion image that topped it. This post also gained 'bonus' hits because I always direct casual visitors to start reading any series at the first article. This article has a valid claim to be the true, top post of the year because it was only narrowly beaten to first place and, published in October, scored a phenomenal number of hits in a short space of time to comfortably top the 'hit rate' table (ave hits per year). It would have won outright given another month. This performance emulated that of the 'Art of Amalaric' articles last year. It's annualised hit rate of 10,775 beat the previous record of 9195 set by Wrestling Arsenal in 2018. Three other articles from the Roa series also made the top 20 (at 7, 8 and 13) all with equally impressive hit rates (see table above). 

 

These stats unequivocally install Roa as mitchmen 'Artist of the Year', underlining his wide popularity and the loss we have suffered as a result of his sudden disappearance from the erotic art scene when it seemed he was just getting going. His renders have some strikingly original moments and strikingly handsome stars too (Sir Graham - yum!). Like many, talented, modern artists, though, some of his characters are disturbingly young, requiring judicious sampling on my part. I too have memories of adolescent longing for an older partner, but unfortunately it's a taboo subject for blogging in this day and age.

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Two other artists also secured multiple entries in the top 20 - TheMightyFoo and  Papa-Con. Both of these make unique contributions to the fetish genre. Foo's frank explorations of homosexual love and the threat of death in a military context are disturbing and understandably controversial, but his renders have a bewildering beauty and are thought-provoking - on both a political and a personal level. He took 4th place and 20th.

 

There's an undercurrent of drama and violence in Papa-Con's work too (at 11 and 18). His wrestling images vividly complete the bizarre, humiliation rituals that professional fighters tease us with and his Abbey series reworks a popular homoerotic theme of secret, ritual punishment, but it's his dramatic and bold, traditional style and inter-generational focus on mature men that makes his work exceptional and very welcome.

The other double entry this year was for the Milking Factory series, No 9 (at 5) and No 11 (at 10), a recurring feature of the table in recent years. No 9 was actually a 2020 post but published so late in the year (mid-Nov) and such a beautiful render, that I've allowed it into this year's table.

 

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The third placed article qualifies as 'Surprise of the Year'. 'Control Room Violation' is an image by an unknown artist (or more than one artist, I suspect) which I rediscovered by chance in my archives. It attracted viewings on a sustained basis across the year. It exploits the theme of the anonymous, lustful intruder which can be a tricky subject, but the futuristic, quasi-military setting leaves questions of context and consent unanswered, so viewers can imagine their own erotic scenarios.

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Another surprise (for me at any rate), was the appearance of one of my own War Comic re-workings in 5th place. It involved the denudification of two POW's under torture in 'Bizarre Punishments No 7'. This  re-imagining of comic book scenes that were already tantalising erotic was what drew me into this area, but I've not been able to do as much as I originally hoped, so far. I'm glad this one struck a chord with my readers.

I also gained another entry for my fiction writing in with 'Eddie's Pre-sale Nerves' at 14, an enslavement story inspired by a gorgeous gif of a body-builder nervously flexing his pecs. It's a theme that has slightly obsessed me since I discovered Amalaric's well-developed world of conscripted slavery and much of the credit for this piece is owed to him.

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Some well established and vintage artists appear in the rankings this year - Paul at No 9 (whose military prisoners in shorts turn me on, but also tread a fine line on age) also Absolutbleu at 15, an uncontroversial colossus, whose sexy, 'Pirate Booty' just missed the cut last year. The detailed review of his work at mitchmen this year was long overdue. Likewise Madeira DeSouza at 17 whose relatively basic style belies some exciting (and often challenging) man-on-man confrontations.

 

Added to these were Robby Cop (12) and Gabo (16) representing newer artists. Robby has a surprisingly original and sparkling erotic style of traditional cartooning. Gabo's 'fan art' fantasies feature the modern style of neat, simple realism.

Also joining this group was Christopher Furminger (19) whose conventional paintings are more true to the homoerotic part of homoerotic art than most 'straight' gay painters who tend to lean towards 'Art' with a capital A. This is another article from late 2020 that I granted a pass into this year's table on the grounds of hit rate and sheer artistic quality.

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As usual there are a clutch of interesting articles which just failed to make the top 20 cut. They would have squeezed in if I had confined the multi-part articles to a single entry. They include Arsch (lab rat), Luxuris (the exclusion of his voluptuous packets from the top 20 surprised me), 'Spanking' Matt's humiliation scenarios , Ehrlik (another lab rat) and Amalaric's delicious 'Barbarian Prince' (part of the continuing mitchmen series on his work, but the only one that got close to emulating his sweeping success last year). 

This year's table features articles based on photographs, comics, cartoons, renders and 'fine' art, a 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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