Friday Face-Off is an idea originally thought up by Books By Proxy which I stole from the fantastic The Tattooed Book Geek. The idea originally was to compare UK and US covers based on an assigned theme each week and choose the winning cover. I will be twisting it slightly: not specifically US and UK covers, just different editions.

This week’s theme is a cover featuring a clown: “Nobody likes a clown after midnight”.

I have gone for one of my all time favourite authors. And more to the point, one of my favourite and most despised books rolled into one, the one book that has ever managed to truly scare me – It. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the horrifying of clowns in the world, the one and only – Pennywise.

Cover A:

Cover B:

Cover C:

Cover D:

Cover E:

Cover F:

Cover G:

Cover H:

Cover I:

Cover J:

And the winner is… cover H.

Quite frankly any of the covers with a clown on are utterly terrifying to my mind, but there is only one true clown – the Pennywise as portrayed by the great Tim Curry. But none of the covers with a clown win it for me. Cover B is the first version of the book I owned, and is iconic in my eye, but the winner by a long shot is cover H. It is simple, but the image of the balloon is so evocative in the context of the book.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my winner, or does one of the others work better for you? Let me know in the comments!

Next week will be looking for a cover featuring a spacecraft: “Slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.”