Forever Home #1 — Christian Ward and Sami Kivela Trap a Family in a Time-Loop Paradise

A scientist builds a time-isolated sanctuary to save his family from the apocalypse, but a single mistake lets the outside world in. Christian Ward and Sami Kivela launch a mind-bending sci-fi horror debut that turns luxury into a trap.

Christian Ward has always been a master of atmospheric dread, whether he’s diving into the psychological terror of Event Horizon: Dark Descent or the gothic horror of Batman: City of Madness. For his first original series with Oni Press, Ward teams up with Sami Kivela, the visionary artist behind Abbott, to explore a different kind of isolation. They aren’t just trapping characters in a location; they’re trapping them in a moment, creating a premise where the most terrifying thing in the universe is the barrier keeping safety and madness apart.

Henry D’mour is a man who failed to save the world, but succeeded in saving his family. He constructed the Forever Home, an ultramodern ark designed to insulate his wife and two children from the planet’s death throes. The technology is miraculous: inside the walls, time moves at a glacial pace compared to the outside, with only twenty minutes passing for every year beyond the doors. It is a paradise of luxury, automated care, and robotic companionship, designed to give the D’mour family endless time to plan a new future. It feels like a perfect refuge.

But perfection is fragile. When a childish misstep cracks the barrier, the sanctuary’s illusion shatters. The outside doesn’t just knock; it enters. Ward and Kivela turn the home itself into a source of anxiety, where the very technology meant to protect the family becomes a cage. The question isn’t just whether they can survive what’s outside, but whether the time they have left is enough to keep the nightmare at bay. The contrast between the sleek interior and the chaotic exterior is where the horror truly lives.

If you’ve ever been drawn to stories where the environment is the antagonist, this debut is a must-read. The collaboration between Ward’s tight, unsettling narrative structure and Kivela’s distinctive, textured art style creates a vibe that is both elegant and deeply unsettling. It’s a book that rewards close attention, asking you to look past the glossy surfaces to see the rot underneath. It’s the kind of launch that announces a major new voice in sci-fi horror with immediate confidence.

Keep an eye on Sami Kivela’s work here; the way he handles the claustrophobic interiors versus the vast, chaotic exteriors is going to stick with you. If you grab the Christian Ward variant cover, you’re getting the artist’s own take on the design, which adds another layer of texture to the package. This is one of those books that feels important from page one, setting up a tension that only grows as the walls close in.