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 Cups![]() |
The Theocrat![]() |
5 of Swords![]() |
Ace of Cups![]() |
The Swamp![]() |
5 of Cups![]() |
3 of Wands![]() |
The Sun![]() |
Knight of Wands![]() |
Card 1: 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 2: 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.
Card 3: 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 4: Ace of Cups
AKA 2angels1grail in traditional 4chan. If you're offended, figure out why you're offended and excise the weakness.
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: 5 of Cups
The problem with a hand of glory is that wax melts and glory fades.
Card 7: 3 of Wands
Two wands to keep them rowing in circles past death, one wand to put an end to it.
Card 8: The Sun
Damn bright thing always vomiting heat and blinding light onto the populous. The artist of this deck isn't a fan.
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.