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
Eight of Cups![]() |
Two of Cups![]() |
King of Swords![]() |
Four of Pentacles![]() |
IX – The Hermit![]() |
Two of Pentacles![]() |
Page of Pentacles![]() |
Nine of Cups![]() |
Ten of Pentacles![]() |
Card 1: Eight of Cups
The 8 of Cups indicates listlessness, lack of purpose, or a moving away from what no longer works to something new. Thinking of the 7 of Cups, the baby steps of your new actions are just poking through as with new noses poking up in your garden.
The 8 of Cups also indicates to be neither patient nor anxious. Telling your dahlias to hurry may just be laughable to the dahlias. Let in the laughable of your current situation. Travel may also be indicated, some travel even as simple as a stroll through an unfamiliar park or place. Sometimes it's best to let things clear on their own accord. Feel free to lose your focus and forget your troubled inertia. Forgetting is often for getting what you're missing.
Card 2: Two of Cups
The 2 of Cups indicates love, friendship, healing, contentment, satisfying relationships, harmony, and cooperation. Two joined are more than just two ones. Distinction made between joined / united versus union. Two identities feeling mutual respect, powerful witness, and participation with one another. With attraction present your heart's desire, feelings, and expressions trump being right.
Card 3: King of Swords
The King of Swords indicates discrimination, clarity of perception. Logical and fair you do not allow emotions to interfere with your ability to bring beliefs and sometimes very innovative ideas to fruition. At this time utilise the ability to carefully weigh all angles of a situation in order to make a fair decision that befits all involved. Benefit.
There is indicated a tendency to be emotionally detached, sometimes making those around you feel intellectually inferior. Be mindful and mindless as to misusing your cerebral abilities. Avoid cunning and outsmarting with cleverness in regards to yourself and others. Feel it all. Do not be the know-it-all. Feel more than you listen. Your clarity goes beyond the words you speak.
* A manner of reading a reversal is to emphasise rather than a reversed meaning, an internal meaning relating more to one's inner self than indicating the outer world. Read the card with your inner context, what it says to you about your inner person.
Card 4: Four of Pentacles
The 4 of Pentacles indicates that you support rather than bearing the weight of the world. Material strength. Stability. Power in any material form that expresses the abundance or your security and stability. Strength of body. Strength of your fortress.
The power of your bank balance. In whatever manner the material realm brings you security and stability, this is it. Note your material context.
* A manner of reading a reversal is to emphasise rather than a reversed meaning, an internal meaning relating more to one's inner self than indicating the outer world. Read the card with your inner context, what it says to you about your inner person.
Card 5: IX – The Hermit
The Hermit indicates inner activity and the clarity you see in the mysteries and seeming lack of form in darkness, indicates walking the cloister of your mind. You may be acutely aware of cycles of experience completed at this time. Identify them clearly and meditate on them from within. Be inwardly active. Others may not see what you see or feel what you feel. The Hermit is not stationary. Do not maintain or hold static perspectives. Now is a poignant time to sense YOUR perspective, and believe what you feel.
Card 6: Two of Pentacles
The Two of Pentacles card indicates that you have power in your balance, striving for equality and choosing not to indulge in instant gratification at the expense of your own purpose. Based upon your values, you are responsible in taking on only what you can handle. Choice and negotiation are your assets.
The Two of Pentacles card reversed suggests that it might be tempting to give up in the face of conflict or romantic stagnation, especially if it seems like you're facing a 'catch-22' or a 'lesser of two evils' decision. When it comes to your partner, you may not be on the same wavelength regarding this matter. Be conscious of the two-way street of overcompensation. . .It should work itself out.
While it may be a hassle or a struggle, making an effort to dance the fine line between practical realities and sensual pleasures can put you in position to resolve this issue. Remember that concentrating too much on the positive or negative makes an opening for maliciousness. Be what IS as you balance! Communication, voicing your issue may bring forth balance.
Card 7: Page of Pentacles
The Page of Pentacles indicates identity development, tuning and tailoring of your established identity, growing and finding your own space, making your own place, building foundations under dreams, amending the soil to nourish your context.
About beginning to find your roots and what works for you. About money and / or health. The Page of Pentacles indicates a person who is very studious and conscientious about money and respectful of others and their property. With this mindset tinker with things at length to see how they work. Understand placement and how your things, aspects, and surroundings inhabit the world they live in.
Pages often indicate expert skill disguised in play. Have fun or simply flow while very actively developing the object of your inquiry. Look at the vitality in the community that is your life.
* A manner of reading a reversal is to emphasise rather than a reversed meaning, an internal meaning relating more to one's inner self than indicating the outer world. Read the card with your inner context, what it says to you about your inner person.
Card 8: Nine of Cups
The 9 of Cups indicates the manifestation of happiness that starts within the mind and emotions of an individual and how they are carried forth into the world. Inner happiness moving into the physical realm is indicated, your own, personalised Hierophant abilities. Take wonderfully respectful and invigorated note of your blossoms and blooms. Celebrate them!
Card 9: Ten of Pentacles
The 10 of Pentacles indicates prosperity, close relationships, inheritance. Practical stability and the tangible material physical world are signified by the Pentacle symbol, but the true meaning of this card is found intuitively each time it appears in the context of the reading. Meld close relationships, prosperity, and inheritance in context to tenor the overall reading.
Also indicated is to appreciate ties and enrichment. Sometimes a surprise inheritance is something you were born with.
* A manner of reading a reversal is to emphasise rather than a reversed meaning, an internal meaning relating more to one's inner self than indicating the outer world. Read the card with your inner context, what it says to you about your inner person.
