Cartoonist Liana Finck loves art that makes you feel seen, or explains something that you’ve needed explaining. It’s exactly how her half a million Instagram followers might describe her own cartoons, which are by turns funny, angry or thoughtful, rendered in just a few jittery lines of black ink. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, and she has also authored the graphic novels Passing for Human and A Bintel Brief and the cartoon collection Excuse Me. When we speak, she is at home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, working on her new book Let There Be Light, a take on the Book of Genesis with a female God.

You draw with a distinctive, wavering line. What role does imperfection play in your work?
My natural line is sloppy, but I always tried to draw neat. I remember worshipping Saul ...