I recently reread Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and I noticed that there are some similarities with It. They are superficial but its enough to make me wonder if SK got some ideas from it. It involves a 'looser's club' having to face a cosmic force and the biggest part was Meg having to save her little brother from a being named It. In another time and place Bill wasn't able to save Georgie. The villains (both It and the Black Thing) use trickery to lure in their victims much like Pennywise does. Sure, it doesn't eat kids in Wrinkle the way Pennywise does, but the entity does devour their free will. They are very much in the dead lights.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?