NOMINATION FOR THE 2021 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
THE GRAND BOUQUET CANNABIQUE OF HUMAN AND CITIZENS RIGHTS DEFENDERS
#AuChanvreCitoyens!
Gaël Denhard (aka Gael ou Ga), 1972, Activist Cartoonist since 1992.
lllustrator and cartoonist for Coma Lucide, the circuit breaker, the CIRC, Chanvre & compagnie, Les éds. du Lézard, La Sirène, Dans-cités- BZK and the kids gone crazy- the iron productions – Kamikaze, NIET, The troc underground, The hammerhead sharks- a tribute to Gilbert Shelton… etc.)
Childhood and schooling : Student in community in the south of France, then in a squat in Belleville (Paris) until my seven years, my schooling will be like my start in life, chaotic and experimental, which will encourage me to leave my studies in fourth, at the age of 17 to try to work and live from my passion, drawing.
» I started to smoke to draw, then I ended up drawing to pay for myself to smoke »
Hemp youth : At the same time as my career as a comic book author, (Mickey, Spirou, l’Echo des savanes, etc.) in 1992, I co-founded the association COMAL CIDE with which we published the fanzine of the same name until 1998; the same year we publish a bilingual manual to learn how to roll Joints « Le petit rouleur illustré », of which I do the drawings and the lay ou;, it will then travel around the globe before ending up in a cannabis museum in Latin America. Still traditionally a pirate, the illustrated little rouleur still remains an intergenerational reference in the French cannabis world of today.
At the same time, we participate in several cannabis events by performing artistic performances, or by decorating the places. We also do covers and illustrations for the group Billy Ze Kick (OCB, etc.) Thanks to the COMA LUCIDE association, we make a fresco at the world cannabis cup in the company of Gilbert SHELTON (Freaks brothers), later we will also realize the visual identity of the first Global hemp shop in France CHANVRE & COMPAGNIE in Montreuil, as well as a fresco on the ceiling of the MUSEE du FUMEUR (Museum of the Smoker) in Paris.
I am learning to cultivate and grow hemp for my own consumption, then I give up to fall back on the hash of the neighbourhoods.
Activist career : Close to the CIRC (Collective for lnformation and Research on Cannabis), I produce various pro-cannabis activist illustrations for posters and leaflets I work for a time for the in-house newspaper intended for patients at the Marmottant hospital.
In 1998, I join the Fumée Clandestine team at Le Lézard editions to illustrate certain chapters of volume 2, then it will be Les Très riches heures du cannabis, then Cannabissimo at La Sirène editions, where I also produce a collection of humor illustrations on cannabis users, Le monde du pétard.
Cannabis user since I am thirteen and sensitized very young to the problems linked to harder drugs, through my humor drawings, it is my experience of user that I tell, with its ups and downs, gags that are often also intended to prevent the consequences of regular and daily use of cannabis.
Today, I continue to collaborate sporadically on various initiatives related to cannabis, whether therapeutic or recreational, but also for new entrepreneurial experiences such as the marketing of CBOs and other cannabis products in supermarkets or the sale of seeds by mail order, etc.
#AuChanvreCitoyens!
