Comic Strip Spread
Difficulty: Easy
Note: This spread works best with decks like the Diary of a Broken Soul or Surrealist Tarot because they display scenes rather than pips and do not use reversals.
The Comic Strip Spread is a simple nine-card chronological spread that looks like a page of a comic book. This method should be used to get a glimpse of the future as it would pan out naturally. It may be insightful to use this spread in coordination with biorhythms. The spread is easy to read as a storyboard, just like a comic strip.
The main subject is apparent in the first card, while the story plays out through the following tarot cards.
It is important to pay particular attention to the cards and the relationships with their neighbours. Notice which directions the cards are facing, and how they interact.
Your Comic Strip Reading
4 of Pentacles |
7 of Cups |
10 of Pentacles |
3 of Swords |
Ace of Swords |
5 of Swords |
9 of Swords |
8 of Wands |
8 of Pentacles |
Card 1: 4 of Pentacles
A crowned figure, having a pentacle over his crown, clasps another with hands and arms; two pentacles are under his feet. He holds to that which he has.
Divinatory Meaning:
The surety of possessions, cleaving to that which one has, gift, legacy, inheritance.
Card 2: 7 of Cups
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.
Reversed Meaning:
Desire, will, determination, project.
Card 3: 10 of Pentacles
A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. They are accompanied by a child, who looks curiously at two dogs accosting an ancient personage seated in the foreground. The child's hand is on one of them.
Divinatory Meaning:
Gain, riches; family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family.
Card 4: 3 of Swords
Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.
Divinatory Meaning:
Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.
Card 5: Ace of Swords
A hand issues from a cloud, grasping as word, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
Reversed Meaning:
The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says – conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
Card 6: 5 of Swords
A disdainful man looks after two retreating and dejected figures. Their swords lie upon the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder, and a third sword is in his right hand, point to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.
Reversed Meaning:
Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonour, loss, with the variants and analogues of these.
Card 7: 9 of Swords
One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.
Divinatory Meaning:
Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair.
Card 8: 8 of Wands
The card represents motion through the immovable – a flight of wands through an open country; but they draw to the term of their course. That which they signify is at hand; it may be even on the threshold.
Reversed Meaning:
Arrows of jealousy, internal dispute, stinging of conscience, quarrels; and domestic disputes for persons who are married.
Card 9: 8 of Pentacles
An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.
Reversed Meaning:
Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury. It may also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue.
