The Fantomen Secret Message Contest was held by Semic Press in Sweden in 1971. The contest required the reader to decipher a secret message the Phantom has received via Monkey Mail in code. The front cover of edition number 14 containing the contest can be seen below.
Found on the inside back cover of the comic book, we see a fold out back cover containing the contest. The puzzle is presented as a message delivered by Monkey Mail to the Phantom’s Skull Cave, written in a coded format where each letter has been shifted in the alphabet (for example, letter B is replaced with C). Readers are challenged to crack the code and figure out what the complete secret message says. The Fantomen Secret Message Contest on the inside back cover of the comic book can be seen below.
The incentive for participating is quite rewarding, as the text states that participants can win 24 refreshing bottles of Merry Fruktsoda (an entire carton) for every single letter they manage to clear and solve. To enter, the 500 first readers who correctly solve the entire message and send in their entry via the coupon provided on the page have the chance to win this carton of Merry Fruit Soda. The entries needed to be mailed to “Fantomens stora sommartävling, Fantomens tävlingsexp” at a Stockholm address before the 31st of July 1971 deadline listed on the coupon.
Merry Fruktsoda (Merry Fruit Soda) was advertised heavily throughout Fantomen comic books, usually on the outside back cover in color. An example of an advertisement can be seen below printed on the outside back cover of Fantomen edition number 15, published in 1971.
