THE man on the cover of this week's TIME once painted a TIME cover himself. The time was World War II, and the subject was Cartoonist Bill Mauldin's famed weary dogface, Willie. Now, after a few years of finding himself, Mauldin at 39 is the most promising political cartoonist on the U.S. scene. TIME Cover Artist Henry Koerner journeyed to St. Louis to spend a fortnight getting an artist's impression of a fellow artist (see cut.)

For a man who makes his point by inviting a smile, Cover Subject Mauldin has a sober view of his trade. He thinks that "the American public highly overrates its sense of humor. We're great belly laughers and prat fallers, but we never really did have a real sense of humor. Not satire anyway. We're a fatheaded, cotton-picking society. When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery." He thinks times are getting worse--and therefore better for the satirist. Right now cartooning is "like going into the garbage-collecting business. There's no money, but worse than that, there is no prestige." For other strong opinions, and the career that came of them, see Press Editor John Koffend's story, Hit It If It's Big.

THE following classified ad appeared last week in the Montreal Star: "Wanted TIME Magazine June 1st

1959; will pay $1 each. Call--."

Montreal Bureau Chief Jon Anderson called the number, found it belonged to a mutual-funds salesman who had found TIME'S cover story that week on the mutual funds (and Dwight Robinson of the Massachusetts Investors Trust) the quickest and best explanation of what mutual funds are about. At the Montreal Men's Press Club, Anderson was told that the going price went as high as $15 for this particular issue. Playing a hunch, Anderson checked the TIME file collected in his own office. Sure enough, June 1, 1959 was missing.

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