A CARTOONISTS' dream encountered a politicians' nightmare yesterday as Peter Garrett named the Australian Financial Review artist David Rowe the best political cartoonist of the year.

As a tall and bald man with a past in protest rock, the Environment Minister acknowledged he gave satirists a lot of material.

"Cartoonists are always going to pick on your physical features and I have very obvious ones. I'm tall and bald," he said.

At an awards ceremony at the Australian National Museum in Canberra, the minister said political cartoons were vital to democracy. While they poked fun at the nation's leaders, they also tapped into the political mood of its people.

As the Canberra Times cartoonist David Pope said, the best works sought to mirror opinions, not change them.

"The thing about cartoons is that they don't really change people's minds. You respond to it when they reinforce how you feel," he said.

Among the cartoons in Rowe's winning body of work was a piece drawn in the aftermath of the apology to the stolen generations. A despondent Brendan Nelson sits, head in hands, with a twitchy Malcolm Turnbull at his back. "No seriously … I think you handled that well," Mr Turnbull says, with an Aboriginal flag creating the effect of a sunset behind them.

Yesterday Rowe lamented the short reign of Dr Nelson, his favourite muse of 2008. He was consoled only by Mr Turnbull's "good head".

Rowe said a big dose of cynicism was handy in his craft, to counter a soft heart. The rise of Barack Obama to the US presidency was going to be the hot topic of next year, he said.

"That's quite an inspiring issue to deal with but you've also got to bring that cynicism in there."

While that was difficult to do amid the energy of the campaign, Rowe said it had to be done. "Our job is to prick those egos," he said.

An exhibition of 82 political cartoons, Behind The Lines: The Year's Best Cartoons 2008 , is at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra until February 1.

It comes to the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta on February 13.