Laerte Coutinho, known mainly as simply Laerte, is a Brazilian cartoonist, comic strip artist and screenwriter. Assigned male at birth, she came out in 2009 as a crossdresser and later as a transgender woman. Laerte has collaborated with several publications such as Balão, O Pasquim, and Chiclete com Banana magazines and draws regularly for Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. She has created several comic strip characters, such as Piratas do Tietê (The Pirates of Tietê River). Since the mid 2000s, Laerte's strips became more philosophical and less humour-focused, abandoning fixed characters.
Laerte Coutinho has 28 screen credits in a career dating back to 1995. Signature works include The City of Pirates, Mapas Afetivos: São Paulo, Casa da Xiclet. Explore the interactive character relationship maps on each title page to trace how their roles connect across franchises.
