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
10 of Wands |
3 of Wands |
6 of Swords |
5 of Swords |
2 of Pentacles |
King of Wands |
Justice |
9 of Pentacles |
3 of Cups |
Card 1: 10 of Wands
A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.
Divinatory Meaning:
A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonised. I set aside that which connects it with honour and good faith. The chief meaning is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success, and then it is the oppression of these things. It is also a card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows, and if it is a question of a lawsuit, there will be certain loss.
Card 2: 3 of Wands
A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.
Divinatory Meaning:
He symbolises established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. The card also signifies able co-operation in business, as if the successful merchant prince were looking from his side towards yours with a view to help you.
Card 3: 6 of Swords
A ferryman carrying passengers in his punt to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, it may be noted that the work is not beyond his strength.
Reversed Meaning:
Declaration, confession, publicity; one account says that it is a proposal of love.
Card 4: 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.
Divinatory Meaning:
Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonour, loss, with the variants and analogues of these.
Card 5: 2 of Pentacles
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number eight reversed.
Divinatory Meaning:
On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.
Card 6: King of Wands
The physical and emotional nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble. The King uplifts a flowering wand, and wears, like his three correspondences in the remaining suits, what is called a cap of maintenance beneath his crown. He connects with the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne.
Reversed Meaning:
Good, but severe; austere, yet tolerant.
Card 7: Justice
The figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works – while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things; – differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet: we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.
Divinatory Meaning:
Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.
Card 8: 9 of Pentacles
A woman, with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grapevines in the garden of a manorial house. It is a wide domain, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being.
Reversed Meaning:
Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith.
Card 9: 3 of Cups
Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.
Divinatory Meaning:
The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing.
