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
5 of Swords![]() |
Knight of Cups![]() |
The Sun![]() |
10 of Swords![]() |
7 of Wands![]() |
7 of Swords![]() |
King of Cups![]() |
9 of Wands![]() |
7 of Pentacles![]() |
Card 1: 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 2: Knight of Cups
An homage to David Lynch. I don't know what divinatory meaning you might get out of a cowboy duel in a kitchen sink, but please do let me know if you find one.
Traditionally, it means romantic change is coming. If you're smart about it, for the better.
Card 3: The Sun
Damn bright thing always vomiting heat and blinding light onto the populous. The artist of this deck isn't a fan.
Card 4: 10 of Swords
Classic iconography. Classic significance: Absolute destruction.
Card 5: 7 of Wands
The BLOB! The blob has taken the streets! It's reproducing, the blob will kill us all!!! THE BLOOOOB!!!!!!!!!!
Card 6: 7 of Swords
An Homage to Kurosawa. Seven swords belonging to seven Samurai.
In a realistic movie, even masters can die, and life has a tendency to move like the most implausible plot.
Card 7: 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 Charlemagne has been replaced by Cthulhu.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 8: 9 of Wands
Thank you Mario, but your princess is in another castle. Besides, this one's blocked by a cypress tree fence. Lofty goals are nothing if you can't get to them.
Card 9: 7 of Pentacles
'And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof'. –Rev 5:5