Slide Show: The “Dreadful” Project

In anticipation of the première of the terrifying new original series “Penny Dreadful,” Showtime and The Sketchbook Project, a crowd-sourced library of artists’ sketchbooks based in Brooklyn, invited 1,000 artists to “illustrate a monster, create an eerie scene, or share your greatest fear of something that lurks within us all—in the shadows.” With delight and trepidation, we share this selection of nightmares set to paper.

An erotically charged, profoundly unsettling new saga, “Penny Dreadful” completely reinvents literature’s most iconic and terrifying characters—each born of an era whose insatiable appetite for violence and the macabre led penny dreadfuls to dominate popular entertainment. Dorian Gray, Victor Frankenstein, and timeless figures from “Dracula” join a cast of original characters in a dark and brutal quest to save a soul—even as they grapple with their own monstrous temptations.

For more on the series, go to Penny-Dreadful.com.