A Modest Destiny was a daily pixel-art web comic (the author, Sean Howard, made a point of it being pixel art rather than a sprite comic, the characters being his own artistic creation rather than being copied from another source). It was launched in January 1st, 2003 and released a strip daily until December 28th in the same year.
''Warning: Mild Spoilers follow
The comic followed the adventures of a young fellow named Maxim and was technically told in flashbacks; the point of view was in the here and now of the flashback with no narration, however, so the fact that it was a flashback made no influence on most of the comic, save for conclusions one could draw based on things people do and say in the future every once in a while when the narration snipped back to it. The theme/setting of the comic was definitely a fantasy world, but it was dotted with modern mentality and references, from Maxim's weapon of choice doing "1d4 damage" ala Dungeons and Dragons to a dramatic heroic entrance speech being supplemented by Sailor Moon's "I will punish you".
A Modest Destiny per se ended together with the year 2003. When it did, Howard gave his audience quite a shock when he announced the site ditching the AMD universe for a science fiction space opera by the name of The Starship Destiny, which is completely unrelated to the original AMD in every way. Details of whether, when and how the original AMD universe will be be back are currently vague and sketchy, and apparently concern mediums different than the website such as published comic books- even if the website ever publishes an AMD strip again, it will probably be years from the original's finale in 2003.
In early December 2003, Sean Howard was involved in a copyright dispute with the famed web comic Penny Arcade. According to Howard, several users on the Penny Arcade forums were using modified pieces of artwork from A Modest Destiny as their avatars. Gabe of Penny Arcade maintains that Mr. Howard was rude and demanding, and that he provided little evidence of actual copyright violation. Sean, on the other hand, claims that Gabe and Tycho virtually ignored his legitimate claims of a violation. He also claims that because they are the bigger webcomic, Penny Arcade has more support and thus their story is more widely believed as true.
Howard cites this conflict as one of the reasons that caused his decision to transform his daily comic. He claims that because of the conflict AMD became somewhat of a burden to work through every day, and he wanted to leave it before it became stagnant and repetitive.
The Penny Arcade Dispute
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