The Soular System

As I said yesterday, Harvey made an earnest attempt to connect with 1960s pop culture. Which doesn't mean they were always good at it...for example, they tried to hitch their wagon to this group in 1968:

Well, that lasted one issue. By 1969, Harvey Pop Comics had dumped the Cowsills and gone to their teen mainstay Bunny to carry the "Rock Happening"!!

Well, the "rock happening" apparently failed as #2 was the last issue of Harvey Pop Comics. But that wasn't the end of Harvey getting jiggy with it.

Now, you all know my deep affection for faux comic rock bands. But the past is only prologue, baby, because you are about to meet the greatest of all:

The Soular System!!

Marcy, Gideon, Randolph and Bomby (??) are Soular System, a hip and happening soul/rock group that were regulars in Bunny's world. Let's follow them for an issue, shall we?

The invite Bunny and her sister Honey to a "soular jive happening," which the girls assume means a "super-rock concert."

So they pile into the Soulmobile:


They go to the fairgrounds...Bunny and Honey think they're performing on stage there...but:


The merry-go-round isn't all:


Back on the road, this time to the spot of the real Soular Jive Happening:

But when they get to the club Kaleidoscopic Zoo, they don't go to the stage or the dance floor...nope:

Oh, yeah, the Beatles clearly ripped off this idea for the own Soular happening (not to mention the Be Sharps)...

But there's Harvey's teen comics in a nutshell: a happy musical group just traveling around singing, and everybody having fun. It's groovy!!

This particular Soular Jive Happening occurred in Bunny #9 (1969).