Pennywise

Storm? Children? Losers? Who or what was Pennywise? Most of all, where was the Standpipe, which Jonesy’s memories had insisted was here? At last he got up, limped back to the truck, got in, and turned up the heater. In the blast of hot air, Jonesy’s body began to shake.

The Derry Standpipe memorial names the Losers Club; the visitor asks who or what Pennywise was.

How, George wondered, could I have thought his eyes were yellow? They were a bright, dancing blue, the color of his mom’s eyes, and Bill’s. “Very wise indeed. Therefore I will introduce myself. I, Georgie, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet George Denbrough.

The storm-drain clown introduces himself to George Denbrough as Pennywise.

… his shoulder and rolled, looking up at the Paul Bunyan statue—only it was no longer Paul Bunyan. The clown stood there instead, resplendent and evident, fantastic in plastic, twenty feet of Day-Glo colors, its painted face surmounting a cosmic comic ruff. Orange pompom buttons cast in plastic, each as big as a volleyball, ran down the front of the silvery suit. Instead of an axe it held a huge bunch of plastic balloons. Engraved on each were two legends: IT’S …

Richie sees the animated Paul Bunyan statue replaced by the clown; this evidence identifies It’s changing manifestation, not a separate folklore person.

Paul Bunyan statue manifestation

“Creepy as hell. You ever see that TV movie about the clown in the sewer?” Hodges shook his head. Later—only weeks before his retirement—he bought a DVD copy of the film, and Pete was right. The mask-face was very close to the face of Pennywise, the clown in the movie.

The clown mask is compared explicitly to Pennywise in the movie.