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 Sun![]() |
The Norn![]() |
9 of Swords![]() |
The Tower![]() |
8 of Wands![]() |
4 of Swords![]() |
Knight of Wands![]() |
The Chamber![]() |
2 of Wands![]() |
Card 1: The Sun
Damn bright thing always vomiting heat and blinding light onto the populous. The artist of this deck isn't a fan.
Card 2: 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 3: 9 of Swords
Drawn on July 4th to the sound of fireworks. Weapons and explosives are now components of ritual as often as components of battle. I suppose they always were.
Card 4: 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 5: 8 of Wands
The means by which you arrive are not necessarily the means by which you'll stay.
Card 6: 4 of Swords
Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!
(Today is a good day to die!)
Card 7: 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 8: 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 9: 2 of Wands
This artist loves Thai food. Tom Yum soup and fried rice mostly. To be honest though I'm very poor at chopsticks.