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
Art![]() |
The Magus![]() |
The Hermit![]() |
The Hanged Man![]() |
The Lovers![]() |
The Sun![]() |
The Emperor![]() |
Lust![]() |
Death![]() |
Card 1: Art
Sagittarius
Combination of forces, realisation, action based on accurate calculation; the way of escape, success after elaborate manoeuvres.
Card 2: The Magus
Mercury
Skill, wisdom, adroitness, elasticity, craft, cunning, deceit, theft. Sometimes occult wisdom or power, sometimes a quick impulse, a brain-wave. It may imply messages, business transactions, the interference of learning or intelligence with the matter in hand.
Card 3: The Hermit
Virgo
Illumination from within, secret impulse from within; practical plans derived accordingly. Retirement from participation in current events.
Card 4: The Hanged Man
Water
Enforced sacrifice, punishment, loss, fatal or voluntary, suffering, defeat, failure, death.
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 Emperor
Aries
War, conquest, victory, strife, ambition, originality, over-weening confidence and megalomania, quarrelsomeness, energy, vigour, stubbornness, impracticability, rashness, ill- temper.
Card 8: Lust
Leo
Courage, strength, energy and action, une grande passion; resort to magick, the use of magical power.
Card 9: Death
Scorpio
Transformation, change, voluntary or involuntary, in either case logical development of existing conditions, yet perhaps sudden and unexpected. Apparent death or destruction, but such interpretation is illusion.