'Penny Dreadful' takes a darker turn.

Byline: Shawn Pogatchnik

John Logan, the creator, writer and show runner of Showtime's "Penny Dreadful,'' has a studio full of surprises in store for fans of the Victorian Gothic horror series. But the biggest one of all might be lurking in his own head.

Showtime's "Penny Dreadful'' -- which makes its Season 2 premiere at 10 p.m. Sunday -- is, in a most peculiar fashion, the story of his own life. Of his desire to be accepted, appreciated, loved -- and his fear of being reviled.

"My characters share a sense of monstrousness, either perceived or actual. That's why I wrote it,'' said Logan, 53, in an interview with The Associated Press on the Irish set of the series. "When I realized I was gay, in the early '70s, it wasn't socially acceptable. I was torn between what I knew to be true about myself -- and what I knew would mark me as different and alien and monstrous to many people -- would separate me from my friends and family. So the very thing that made me who I was -- and empowered me -- also isolated me.''

This shadow from his own teenage years, Logan says, guides his approach to shaping the eccentric blend of characters of "Penny Dreadful.'' They include his own creations -- the satanically tormented Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), the gun-slinging American werewolf in London, Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), and the colonial adventurer haunted by grief, Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) -- alongside figures drawn from the most stylized corners of the gothic literary canon: Doctor Frankenstein and his Creature, and the ageless Dorian Gray.

"All the characters manifest some version of that central dilemma. So to me it's a deeply personal story,'' said Logan. "Yes, it has all the tropes of a horror show. Yes, it deals with great literary characters. But really for me it's about the yearning and pain and search for love in those characters.''

The survival stakes have been raised for Ives & Co. Last year's vampires often proved hard to find and easy to blow away. This season, a seemingly peripheral character from the first -- Evelyn Poole, otherwise known as the mystic Madame Kali -- is revealed to be a witch with a direct line...