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 Empress |
Fortitude |
The Chamber |
The Sorcerer |
The Swamp |
The Moon |
The Sorceress |
Balance |
The Hanged Man |
Card 1: The Empress
Regime change in action, it happens more in the sewers than the senates. One goes out, another comes in.
Card 2: Fortitude
Bravery and strength can get one killed, but they're still pretty badass. Don't fear what you needn't fear, but don't get carried away.
Card 3: The Chamber
AKA The World in traditional Tarot.
The walls and windows are all bricked up, there appears to be no way out, but you got in somehow, so there must be a way. Have you tried looking behind you? Even if you're trapped forever (As you are in this world) there's likely something fun do while you're here.
Card 4: The Sorcerer
AKA The Magician in traditional Tarot.
The sort of guy who knows, wills, dares and keeps his mouth shut.
Card 5: The Swamp
8:00 – Card 1
AKA Temperance in the traditional Tarot. Male, Earth, Scorpio.
Stagnation, nothing moves, nothing changes. Barriers block every effort to improve or change, not that rock has anywhere to go. The elements and life move around it, grow from it, decay upon it, but it goes nowhere.
Card 6: The Moon
Tranquillity, calm, beauty, and for some reason I never understood, lobster. Don't ask me, blame antiquity.
Card 7: The Sorceress
12:00 – Card 11
AKA The Priestess in traditional Tarot. Female, Fire, Leo.
The master of events, the shaper of destiny, the will in action. The opposite of the fool, the Sorceress is active, in control. Aware instead of ignorant, wise instead of apathetic. A goddess, for the only gods that exist are men and women who make deities of themselves.
Card 8: Balance
AKA Justice in traditional Tarot.
Not the scales of a common religious moralist and no longer a cardinal virtue, but the raw, heartless justice of nature.
Card 9: The Hanged Man
5:00 – Card 2
Male, Water, Cancer.
A victim, weakness, prey. To try and then to fail in the worst way hurts, but it's better than standing still or letting those around you dictate your actions. There are great ambitious lives throughout history now deemed failures, even some angels have failed. But failure nonetheless.
