What is "IT" with These Clowns?

I had written about Jon Kudelka's cartoons in my last post and after I finished writing that post I picked up the paper and saw the story above about clowns terrorizing children in public places, in which the clowns were referred to as "circus freaks" in that newspaper article -
Animism Without the Dog-matism?

The real life Arthur Circus and its playground in Hobart

Jon Kudelka had a cartoon in his book 'Hobart' about historic Arthur Circus with a clown swinging in the playground, and I thought when I saw these two pieces together just how funny IT is how clowns are perceived more as scary creepy creatures more often than jolly fun-loving characters in modern pop culture.

The newspaper article mentions that "legitimate clowns are upset about the sightings following on from several negative depictions dragging down the profession, such as Pennywise from the  
Stephen King novel 'IT'."
Now there is a re-booted 'IT' movie being shot with yet another version of the scary pop cultural clown to bring the clown profession further down (the drain?-).

The new Pennywise

I also wrote a post about David Ury being the guest of a Radio8Ball show and how he was cast as a creepy clown in an upcoming Rob Zombie movie -
The Radio8Ball Show: Season Zero-Episode Three with Sandman & David Ury

"Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, Hell-like compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns." 
ROB ZOMBIE'S 31 Official Trailer (2016) Horror Movie HD

David Ury is also in a movie named 'Fear Inc.', where "a horror junkie and his friends sign up with a company that brings their customer's greatest fears to life."

No wonder these days in the pop cultural world when children see clowns they think that their number is up.

This clown is really scary to me