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![]() |
King of Swords![]() |
8 of Pentacles![]() |
2 of Pentacles![]() |
5 of Swords![]() |
King of Cups![]() |
Balance![]() |
Knight of Wands![]() |
Ace of Cups![]() |
Card 1: 10 of Wands
The average Tarowandian can spend up to 65% of its life span brushing its teeth. No matter what the fates bring, never forget to brush your teeth twice a day and floss. Also be sure to see a dentist twice a year to check for cavities, and brush your gums too to maintain a healthy pink colour. Red gums mean you may be susceptible to GINGIVITIS.
Card 2: King of Swords
The coronation of the nuclear bomb. It's the sword that can annihilate a city, a few of them can end the world. It's a weapon so deadly that its mere existence changed the way mankind thinks of war. It's the point at which humankind's means finally exceeded its goals. 1945 was the end of one world and the birth of a new.
Card 3: 8 of Pentacles
Things grow from other dead things. Don't overlook them for their dark origins, and don't dismiss the dead as a total erasure of what was.
Card 4: 2 of Pentacles
Some cultures to this day place coins upon the eyes of the dead to pay the ferryman who will take them to the land of the dead. I'm guessing one eyed individuals travel at half fare and the blind go for free.
In reality, you can't take a cent with you. Spend it while you're alive.
Card 5: 5 of Swords
An homage to Bosch and Bruegel, and a card symbolic of victory to the well-armed and pain to the unprepared or unwilling to defend.
Card 6: King of Cups
An homage to H.P. Lovecraft and the culture that's grown around his works in the modern world. Charlemagne has been replaced by Cthulhu. Past insanity has been replaced with new insanity, but it's still madness all the same. Don't believe that just because it's changed means it's been fixed.
Card 7: 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 8: Knight of Wands
Read 'The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha', preferably the edition with illustrations by Gustav Dore. At the very least see the play 'Man of La Mancha'.
Mock what lunatics you may, but at some point you've been the fool too, and fools, whatever else they are, are also the best dreamers.
Card 9: Ace of Cups
AKA 2angels1grail in traditional 4chan. If you're offended, figure out why you're offended and excise the weakness.