title: General approach to developing an image classification algorithm for Dilbert cartoons
body: <p>As a self-development exercise, I want to develop a simple classification algorithm that, given a particular cell of a Dilbert cartoon, is able to identify which characters are present in the cartoon (Dilbert, PHB, Ratbert etc.). </p>
  
  <p>I assume the best way to do this is to (1) apply some algorithm to the image, which converts it into a set of features, and (2) use a training set and one of many possible machine learning algorithms to correlate the presence/absence of certain features with a particular character being present in the cell.</p>
  
  <p>So my questions are - (a) is this the correct approach, (b) since there's a number of classification algorithms and ML algorithms to test, what is a good methodology for finding the right one, and (c) which algorithms would you start with, given that we're essentially conducting a classification exercise on a cartoon.</p>