I have imported and traced a favorite Dilbert cartoon with inscape-CVS (as of today). The source image was of marginal quality, so the lines need quite a lot of cleanup. It shouldn't be too hard to adjust, and the result will be well worth the effort.

The cartoon strip has three square panels. With each panel there are elements such as characters, desks, etc. I removed any shading from the source bitmap, so its just line art.

- How do I break the monolithic traced path into separate objects for each square panel?

- Within each panel, how do I snip and cut each character/prop element to be on its own path?

Both of these operations figuratively involve defining a few construction lines and saying 'cut here'. Is there a literal way to use this concept with the cut, union and difference tools?

Thanks, I think once I have the elements separated, my existing experience with inkscape will be sufficient to finish.