Hal Hiner, Easy Reader co-founder remembered
Hal Hiner’s pen and ink Santa appeared on Easy Reader’s 1976 holiday cover.
Hal Hiner, a founder of Easy Reader in 1970, passed away Sunday, July 12 at his home in Yucca Valley from cancer. He was 63.
Hiner was a gifted artist who drew the ads and headlines for the early Easy Readers, when the paper was typeset on an IBM Executive, proportionate spacing, electric typewriter. Hiner also wrote music reviews and drew the popular “Aynsley the Cat” cartoon strip. “Aynsley” was written by founding editor and publisher John Wilson and made fun equally of Hermosa’s police, political leaders and hippies. Hiner readily acknowledged that Aynsley was a ripoff of cartoonist Art Crumb’s widely syndicated“Fritz the Cat.” Aynsley met his demise when Fritz confronted him and plugged him full of holes.
Hiner attended Mira Costa and Pacific Shores high schools and had a commercial sign and mural painting business. He painted the widely admired woman sitting next to a stream on the Sweeter Cafe night club in Redondo Beach.
Bob Dylan drawn by Hal Hiner with a ballpoint pen in 1966 while a student at Mira Costa High School.
In the late 1980s, he moved with his wife Loreen and children Vanessa and Eben to Joshua Tree, where he opened Trailer Trash thrift and antiques and restored post World War II American cars. He also became a leading figure in the desert music scene. He helped manage his son Eben’s swing band when swing music enjoyed a burst of popularity in the early 1990s and and his grandson Alex’s South Bay band Canor. He emceed the Trailer Trash open mic nights until just weeks before his passing.
Hiner’s most lasting legacy may be “The Stars that Shine in Joshua Tree,” a music compilation by high desert musicians that he, his wife Loreen and Red Barn Recording Studio owner Gar Robertson were producing and had nearly completed. Grandson Alex plans to help finish the album and is also planning a concert by desert musicians in memory of his grandfather. ER
Hal Hiner pen and ink drawing for Easy Reader’s 1976 holiday cover.