Next month will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo
11 moon landing, and this month marks the first anniversary of Retro Fan magazine. To commemorate both
events, Retro Fan is devoting much of
its fifth issue to all things spacey. Yes, the pop cultural legacy of the
actual Apollo 11 crew gets its own two-page article, but the big draw of issue
5 is undoubtedly its cover boy. Mark Hamill sat down with Glen Greenberg for a
15-page interview—well, maybe interview is the wrong word since Greenberg rarely
gets to do much more than slip in the occasional “Right, right” or “[laughs].”
Mostly he just steps aside to let the always-delightful Hamill expound on his
work and legacy as Luke Skywalker. Before you start drooling for big
revelations about Episode IX, be aware that the interview was actually
conducted back in the summer of 2017 before The
Last Jedi had even been released. Though bits of it were apparently included
in an article Greenberg wrote for TIME
Magazine for Kids, this is the first time the unabridged interview is being
published. Fortunately, it is being published in Retro Fan, which means that a slew of boffo color photos of
Hamill-centric memorabilia accompany the interview.
Other spacernalia featured in issue 5 includes a feature on
astronaut-toy line Major Matt Mason, an article about the alien-abetted Greatest American Hero and an interview
with star William Katt (who was also a frontrunner for the role of Skywalker),
and a groovy12-page history of seventies sci-fi series Jason of Star Commander that got a pretty big squeal of “Hey…I
totally forgot about that... I used to love that!” from yours truly. You know an issue of Retro Fan is worth its salt when it
elicits that reaction.
