But it makes for great material for the team putting together the regular exhibition of the year's best cartoons at the Museum of Australian Democracy.

And 2022's Cartoonist of the Year, The Canberra Times's own David Pope, had a "pretty excellent year", according to curator Amy Lay.

"In a year full of twists and turns - as they ever are - his work I think this year was really comprehensive and consistently elegant and layered," she said.

"His work has always had that particular kind of insight and intricate detail. And in a year where things that have happened have required a sense of nuance and an understanding of these layered issues, David's work has been an absolute standout."

Pope also won his fourth Gold Stanley award for Cartoonist of the Year in Coffs Harbour last month.

Ms Lay was particularly taken with Pope's post-election "Wave" cartoon, depicting Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese being carried to shore - dog Toto in his arms - on a teal-coloured wave.

She also loved his depiction of three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse commiserating at a water cooler, having discovered the fourth - pestilence - had been named "employee of the year".

"Seeing the horseman relating to flood being pipped at the post by pestilence - again, what a great way to steal such complex and intertwined issues into a really memorable image," she said.

"It is a skill, and our cartoonists do that so beautifully, where they're able to pinpoint an issue that, for David Pope, affects Canberra, but then issues that affect the nation or the east coast with the floods particularly, but then being able to draw that back to bigger things that are going on at the same time, for example, with the climate.

"The skill is remarkable in being able to create a message that cuts through and resonates out of really, really big issues."

The exhibition, which has been staged yearly for more than a decade, has changed substantially over the years, as the media landscape has shifted to suit changing tastes and reading habits, Ms Lay said.

READ MORE: David Pope's view

"There are the regular cartoonists who we know are producing a lot of fantastic work - the David Popes of the world," she said.

"But there are also plenty of new and emerging cartoonists who are publishing in different ways. The realm of political cartooning is not just in published media anymore. 2021 winner Glenn Le Lievre, for example, who publishes almost exclusively on Patreon, and other new or emerging cartoonists who post only on Instagram.

"The realm of cartooning is much more online and much more based on social media than it ever has been before. That's really exciting because it changes the way that we interact with cartoons - that shareability with friends and community brings them to different audiences."

Each year, the curating team selects from a pool of around 1000 notable cartoons to whittle down to an exhibition that best sums up the year in news and politics.

"Behind the Lines is an opportunity to create a sort of narrative for our visitors about things that have happened throughout the year to help them make sense of them," she said.

"But it does also come down to the insight, the execution, the way that a cartoonist can get a message across, all those sorts of traditional things that we would expect to see in the best cartoons, as well as fitting into the bigger story."

And in a year that's made us ever more aware of the fragile nature of democracy, as we watch war and conflict unfold and play out in other countries, she said the museum at Old Parliament House was the natural home for such an exhibition.

"That's what we always say - it's a reflection of a thriving democracy to have a strong and diverse community of cartoonists," Ms Lay said.