◆◆◆ The Martian Behind the Curtain Martian Press is a Los Angeles-based Risograph press that publishes artwork and writing with a thematic focus in queerness, speculative fiction, and utopianism.
Martian Press was founded in Milwaukee, WI in October of 2015 by Stephanie Lane Gage, who continues to independently run it today. Gage graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design that prior spring, and moved into a co-op studio space above (now defunct) Company Brewing in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood with a gaggle of her fellow alumni. MP was born in this space, with the very same GR3770 that resides in her studio today. Gage relocated to Los Angeles from the Midwest in 2017, hauling her Riso and myriad ink drums cross-country along with her. In the fall of 2017, MP was run out of a cramped bedroom in her first LA apartment, until moving into a warehouse studio space in DTLA’s Toy District in early 2018. Gage operated MP in that location for 5.5 years, enjoying the rooftop garden, city skyline views, discovering her favorite LA dive bar around the corner (the Escondite), and throwing several pizza parties for Riso friends during Printed Matter’s various LA Art Book Fairs, then held at nearby MOCA Geffen in Little Tokyo.
In 2019, Gage was honored to be invited to speak about Martian Press at the North American Risograph Conference in Chicago, IL.
Gage graduated with an MFA from CalArts in 2023, and later that year, moved Martian Press to a new street-level studio space in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of LA where it operates today. Since its conception, MP has exhibited in over 50 art book and zine expositions worldwide.
In addition to running Martian Press, Gage has a personal art practice that occasionally forays into mediums other than Riso. She is currently a lecturer at Otis College of Art & Design, where she teaches graphic design and (surprise, surprise!) Risograph printing. In what little time she has left, she works as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, enjoys swimming and hiking, reading sci fi, drinking craft beer, going to punk shows, writing fiction, looking at the stars, and hanging out with her dog, Trout. Oh, and she also organizes a weekly informal writing group in LA called “the Society of Writers for Alcoholic Mingling & Productivity”, aka: SWAMP.
For everything else, please use our contact form or send an email to the address listed below.
Email: martianpress.riso@gmail.com
Instagram: @martian.press
Address:
3526 N Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90031
We are located at the east end of Broadway in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles. Our studio is appointment-only and closed to the public.