(written from a Production point of view)
Dan Madsen (born 1962) is the founder, publisher and past president of the Official Star Trek Fan Club. In 1979 at the age of 18, he attended a showing of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and fell in love with the movie, leading him to begin publishing a fanzine. In 1982, Paramount Pictures and Gene Roddenberry contacted him and asked him to license his newsletter. After doing this, it became the Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine (later Star Trek: Communicator). Around 1986, he formed the company FANtastic Media and began running the Star Trek fan club in tandem with the magazine – again, as officially licensed by Paramount Pictures.
He received special thanks in the credits of Journey's End: The Saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation and appeared in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special for an interview.
After selling FANtastic Media to Decipher in 2001, he remained on staff until Decipher's abandonment of the license in 2005. He currently oversees marketing for Her Universe (www.heruniverse.com), the first line of apparel for female sci-fi fans including a fashion line for Star Trek.
Other fan work
While predominantly known in Star Trek circles for his fan work for that franchise, he was concurrently as equally prolific in very similar functions for the Star Wars franchise, having served as president of the Official Star Wars Fan Club and likewise having been the founder and publisher of the The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine official fan magazine, later rechristened as Star Wars Insider and published by Titan Magazines – also the publisher of Star Trek: Communicator's successor, Star Trek Magazine. In this Madsen had bucked the trend by simultaneously serving both franchises at a time when most of his fellow fans of either persuasion were deeply embroiled in an intense rivalry with each other, and which was particularly fierce in the early decades when Madsen served both. As with that of Star Trek, Madsen's fan club was officially licensed by Lucasfilm, but unlike Star Trek however, he was rewarded for his efforts on behalf of the Star Wars franchise, when he made a cameo appearance in The Phantom Menace, the first Star Wars prequel.
Nonetheless, he did get a speaking part in the 1998 Star Trek referencing film Free Enterprise from Mark A. Altman and Robert Meyer Burnett, which starred William Shatner as a fictionalized and exaggerated version of himself.
Star Trek articles
- "Gene Roddenberry – The Creator of Star Trek: The Next Generation", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine issue 1, pp. 4-9
External links
- Dan Madsen at the Internet Movie Database
- Dan Madsen: Star Trek's Fan Communicator at TrekCore
- 2010 Dan Madsen interview (2019 re-publication) at StarTrek.com
- Dan Madsen at Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki