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 Hanged Man![]() |
The Hierophant![]() |
Adjustment![]() |
The Priestess![]() |
The Lovers![]() |
The Sun![]() |
The Fool![]() |
The Tower![]() |
The Moon![]() |

Card 1: The Hanged Man
Water
Enforced sacrifice, punishment, loss, fatal or voluntary, suffering, defeat, failure, death.

Card 2: The Hierophant
Taurus
Stubborn strength, toil, endurance, placidity, manifestation, explanation, teaching, goodness of heart, help from superiors, patience, organisation, peace.

Card 3: Adjustment
Libra
Justice, or rather justesse, the act of adjustment, suspension of all action pending decision; in material matters, may refer to law suits or prosecutions. Socially, marriage or marriage agreements; politically, treaties.

Card 4: The Priestess
The Moon
Pure, exalted and gracious influence enters the matter. Hence, change, alternation, increase and decrease, fluctuation. There is, however, a liability to be led away by enthusiasm; one may become 'moon-struck' unless careful balance is maintained.

Card 5: The Lovers
Gemini
Openness to inspiration, intuition, intelligence, second sight, childishness, frivolity, thoughtfulness divorced from practical consideration, indecision, self-contradiction, union in a shallow degree with others, instability, contradiction, triviality, the 'high-brow'.

Card 6: The Sun
The Sun
Glory, gain, riches, triumph, pleasure, frankness, truth, shame-lessness, arrogance, vanity, manifestation, recovery from sickness, but sometimes sudden death.

Card 7: The Fool
Air
In spiritual matters, the Fool means idea, thought, spirituality, that which endeavours to transcend earth.
In material matters, it may, if badly dignified, mean folly, eccentricity, or even mania.
But the essential of this card is that it represents an original, subtle, sudden impulse or impact, coming from a completely strange quarter.
All such impulses are right, if rightly received; and the good or ill interpretation of the card depends entirely on the right attitude of the Querent.

Card 8: The Tower
Mars
Quarrel, combat, danger, ruin, destruction of plans, sudden death, escape from prison.

Card 9: The Moon
Pisces
Illusion, deception, bewilderment, hysteria, even madness, dreaminess, falsehood, error, crisis, 'the darkest hour before the dawn', the brink of important change.