A Guy, A Girl, A Gun and...

...a big brass bed!?



There's certainly no denying both the exotic, sexual symbolism and the pleasing compositional elements a big brass bed brings to the design of an illustration. Robert Jones and plenty of others have proved that point.
But as a reoccurring motif in a series of spy/detective novels?

I suppose in the context of that early 70's vaselined-lens Penthouse pictorial period in American pop culture it might have worked, but from a modern perspective it comes across as sort of comical.

I mean, sure, we expect tough-guy heroes to do some serious bedroom excercising, always with a gun under the pillow, but the thought of a guy who uses the bedroom as an office and regularly winds up with a corpse as a floor mat just makes me snicker.

McGinnis images once again courtesy of Ken Steacy.