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
The Norn |
The Lovers |
The Sorcerer |
The Devils |
The Beast |
The Hermit |
The Tower |
Death |
The Theocrat |
Card 1: The Norn
2:00 – Card 10
AKA The Wheel of Fortune in traditional Tarot. Female, Air, Gemini.
Symbolic of fate, and what is fate but change? Everything changes in time; change is the only constant. What one cannot control one must predict, and act in accordance with. Opposition to the inevitable yields only pain.
Card 2: The Lovers
9:00 – Card 6
Male, Air, Sagittarius.
Ceration is the alchemical act of adding a liquid to the substance while heated, yielding a softer substance with a wax-like texture. Not to be confused with alchemical union, but an important step toward it.
Card 3: The Sorcerer
AKA The Magician in traditional Tarot.
The sort of guy who knows, wills, dares and keeps his mouth shut.
Card 4: The Devils
11:00 – Card 9
AKA The Devil in traditional Tarot. Female, Fire, Capricorn.
Predators, perpetrators, the strong over the weak. They are movers and manipulators of fate, but always at each other’s throats. Time devours its own children and this is the card of that act, for time itself is only a continuum, it's really time's children that devour each other.
Card 5: The Beast
3:00 – Card 7
AKA Judgement or The Angel in traditional Tarot. Female, Air, Aries.
Birth, gain and success. To eat the apple and learn mastery of life and death. To nurse and grow strong. To win. These are all steps toward the goal but not the goal itself, to mistake the method for the achievement will leave one halfway there.
Card 6: The Hermit
4:00 – Card 5
Male, Air, Virgo.
A card of loneliness, disconnection and solitude. Also, a card of hope – If you have half of something it means the other half is out there somewhere. It may be far away, you may have to wade through the nastiest slums to find it, but when you do it's brilliant.
Card 7: The Tower
10:00 – Card 4
Male, Earth, Libra.
Failure and Loss. Defeat and ruin. The higher it's built, the harder it falls and the more it crushes when it does. That doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't worth building. Defeat can be accepted and the ruins left behind in favour of greener pastures, or one can start to rebuild. The latter is more difficult, but often more rewarding.
Card 8: Death
Card 9: The Theocrat
1:00 – Card 8
AKA The Hierophant in traditional Tarot. Male, Fire, Taurus.
The master, the controller, the employer. To force one's will upon others and make them work for your own benefits. Not always a cruel thing if it's done right. But it's so rarely done right.
