G-Man And The Lie Detectors Of The Universe

An overused plot in early comics ads were set up to snooker kids into their magazine selling service by convincing them to be a young G-Man. Whether they were connected to the comedy troupes of the Dead End Kids or the Bowery Boys, the "Junior G-Men" was almost a cult for boys set up by former FBI agent Melvin Purvis in the 1930s as a sort of volunteer neighborhood watch. Since Purvis was in charge of bringing down John Dillinger, he had already gained a celebrity status that went into creating comics characters like Dick Tracy. The concept of a G-Man wasn't part of any established copyright, so it was easy for some slick advertisers to get hungry kids who wanted in on the craze into becoming their magazine salesmen. It was a scheme by Crowell-Collier Publishing to hook boys into being paperboys for their Grit-wannabe publications that instead of getting paid money for their services, these gullible tikes would receive prizes that were supposed to water their mouths. You could sell enough of their rags to earn coveted sports equipment, magician props, a streamlined bike, and their own operational plane which turned out to be a toy model. The Holy Grail of all these prizes was their officially unofficial G-Man kit which included a microscope, a working lie detector, along with undescribed chemicals and dyes that could either be used to get the little buggers stoned or for taking fingerprints just in case Little Bucky from across the street should happen to run across a spy ring in the middle of their suburban neighborhood. Therefore, if you are an eager young dope hoping to keep your country free of Nazis and other foreign subversive organizations, then you should pledge to selling Cromwell-Collier titles to scrape together enough credit to help win the war on crime, even though the nickel and dime case cracker kit they sent you would be about as effective on crime as a wet noodle would be for putting out a fire.