In "The World Outside," I examine comic books showing up in outside media, like TV shows, sports, novels and films.

Back in July, comic book writer Sam Humphries (who you might know from his many awesome comics, most recently being a run on Green Lanterns) asked folks on Twitter to identify the comic book that Billy Corgan is reading in the video to the Smashing Pumpkins' "Today." I had narrowed it down to a year and a group of titles, but before I could any closer, a Twitter user named Wes figured it out. Just earlier today, though, I ran across the comic book in question in ANOTHER column that I just wrote, and I figured that serendipity compels me to feature it here.

Okay, in case you're unfamiliar with the video, here is the Smashing Pumpkins' hit single, "Today."

The video features Billy playing an ice cream truck driver who drives into the desert, picks up some other folks and then they paint the white truck all sorts of crazy colors while people make out around them in the desert. Hey, it was the 1990s.

Anyhow, at the start of the video, Corgan's character is reading a comic book.

See if you can figure out what comic book that is before I tell you.

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Yes, from today's earlier column about how Blade lost his soul (and then never actually got it back), the comic book in question is the conclusion to the "Midnight Massacre" crossover, where Blade had sold his soul to become Switchblade, scourge of all horror characters, including all of his friends. He kills Hannibal King, Johnny Blaze, Morbius, Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night and more. Then, in 1993's Spirits of Vengeance #13 (Adam Kubert's final issue on the series before he left to go draw Wolverine), a spell reverses everything and everyone comes back to life...

As you can see, the second page is the page that is visible in Corgan's hands in the video.

That's it for this installment! If anyone else has a suggestion for an interesting time when a comic book ended up getting featured in a TV show, music video, novel, etc., drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!