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 Fool![]() |
3 of Swords![]() |
Ace of Swords![]() |
10 of Pentacles![]() |
6 of Swords![]() |
10 of Cups![]() |
10 of Swords![]() |
5 of Swords![]() |
Knight of Wands![]() |
Card 1: The Fool
6:00 – Card 0
Male, Water, Pisces.
Ignorance is a trait of the most basic. To let the currents of time and fate dictate one's actions completely, to seek the lowest, easiest path will lead one downwards. One's hunger will destroy what's beautiful, resulting in the squandering of things put to better use.
Card 2: 3 of Swords
The Vikings were once the most feared force on the northern seas, now they are remembered by statues, Swedish death metal, and Antonio Banderas movies. Do what you will to ensure your name, but once you're gone you have no control over what will become of it.
Card 3: Ace of Swords
'At the east of the garden of Eden he placed the Angel and a flaming sword that turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life'. –Genesis 3:24
Card 4: 10 of Pentacles
The tree of life doesn't play out flawlessly like it does in the diagrams. It's actually far more distorted than that. Don't mistake the map for the territory and follow books blindly.
Card 5: 6 of Swords
Something has to make the rain come down. It got up there but once there's enough of it, it falls back to Earth. It's not enough just to let it happen, if you want to understand you have to observe.
Card 6: 10 of Cups
The most valuable things in the world are worthless if you throw them down the drain. And yes, those are Zebetites.
Card 7: 10 of Swords
Classic iconography. Classic significance: Absolute destruction.
Card 8: 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 9: 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.