You can see some creepy clown action in my upcoming novel manuscript:
Here's a blurb and an excerpt for your trurble:
Iris is seventeen when she's forced to share a coffin with the embalmed corpse of her best friend and first love, Hazel. At twenty-seven, after a decade of hiding in her childhood bedroom, Iris is still desperate for closure in Hazel's unexplained murder. She infiltrates the wealthy spiritualist society she believes killed Hazel: the Orchestra of Oddities. To understand Hazel's death, Iris will join Orchestra Conductor Izanami in her cannibalistic quest for immortality. She'll also learn that the dead-especially Hazel-are closer than we think.
"There was a clown in the box, and he was not a drawing but a man, and his powdery makeup flaked off the bags under his eyes, and Iris could see each of the folds of skin in his neck frozen like a broken accordion, folds in a neck that did not move with heartbeat or breath but only choked stiffly above his pale ruffled collar [...]"
Fun Fact:
The dead clown Pierre Pierrot in Open Casket was inspired by Achile Chatouilleu, the preserved corpse of a clown that was owned for some time by the California Institute of Abnormalarts.
As the story goes, Achile insisted on being embalmed and entombed in his original outfit from the Chicago Shriners Parade. He intended for his family to collect the body every year and place it at the head of a memorial parade.
They didn't.
Open Casket was inspired in part by Achile's fierce desire to keep his body relevant through spectacle and performance-in death, a kind of eternal life. I was drawn to him because I feel like he pushes clownery about as far as it can go, which is into the grave. I guess it was a grave mistake! (Ba-dum tss.) Anyway, I loved the idea that even in death, we might not be released from the social pressure to perform. To make a spectacle of ourselves. To fully embody our performances in the only way we can when there is no longer joking and dancing and prat-falling and balloon-animal-tying: to lie in a coffin caked in makeup and wait for someone to throw us a parade. Now that's what I call horror.
And here's a little something extra, just for fun!
Boo =HssHss • Hss⌄. ⌄⌄• BooBoo⌄Hee, ⌄^ Hee^”, ()•()• ⌄•⌄. Oo^• Hee, =~Oo, HeeHee^ •. =• • Hee.