1 {Scene: A dark night}
1 [caption]: Secret agent 0x0A James Stud makes his way carefully and slowly through the dark grounds of a chateau...
2 [caption]: He steps lightly, pauses to take in his surroundings with all his senses, then steps again...
3 [caption]: Taking the time to reassure himself that nobody is in the vicinity, he moves on...
4 Grant: Ah, there you are. What took you so long?

Yes fans, James Stud returns to the big screen!

The backgrounds are a couple of photos I took in the gardens of the Würzburg Residenz in Würzburg, Germany, which is a World Heritage listed building. It really is a stunningly beautiful place. It's a little off the major tourist routes in Germany, but well worth the visit.

I had another good reason to visit Würzburg: my mother is from there, and my aunt still lives there.

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2018-09-16 Rerun commentary: I would have preferred to have the first three panels totally silent, with neither dialogue nor captions, to match the opening of the film From Russia With Love, but then it would have been much more difficult for anyone not familiar with the movie to work out what was happening here.

On that "returns to the big screen" thing: There's actually a good chance that you're seeing this rerun on a bigger screen than you did the original publication of this strip (if you were around back then). Since you've probably upgraded your monitor since then.