DEAD MAX COMIX

Seventh grader Derrick's 'Dead Max Comix' are such a hit in the school paper that he and Max start an advice column. Derrick and Doug should have asked for advice before they started a band without inviting Kim and Keisha to join. To get even, Kim challenges the guys to come up with awesome costumes for Comic-Con and enter the upcoming Battle of the Bands.

Derrick's goldfish friends, Finn and Gillian, have gone missing! Things take a turn for the weird when Derrick realizes his two science teachers are also nowhere to be found. Is it possible Finn and Gillian have been transmogrified into giant teacher-snatching zombie-robot piranhas? Could mysterious postcards hold the answers? And what do plankton, plastic, and the fate of the oceans have to do with missing persons and punny, piscatorial pets? The game is on, and Max and Derrick are on the case, but they could be headed for the deadest of ends as they battle to bag the menacing Furball of the Apocalypse.

Derrick Hollis is a 7th grader at Zachary Taylor Middle School and an aspiring cartoonist, too shy to show his work to anybody but his best friend Doug. When his dog Max dies, Derrick is left devastated. But then Max returns from the other side and starts to give Derrick advice. Derrick could use it, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart and standing up to bullies. When Derrick is too scared to ask his crush Kim to the Spring Fling, Max tells Derrick to 'dog up!' and shake his tail on the dance floor. Will Dead Max be good for Derrick or lead him astray?.

Derrick finally feels like he's getting the hang of Middle School. He's in a band with his best friends and his dogs Bennie and Max are getting along. Even his Dead Max comics and advice columns are a hit, until Max's cat-hating ways start raising hackles with his cat-loving readers. Then when Derrick's cartoons protesting racism backfire, the Muslim kids turn against him and the paper is in danger of being shut down, along with Derrick's cartooning career. Is Derrick a racist bully or trying to help some friends fight hatred? Luckily, Dead Max and some fishy characters are on the case, sleuthing out the real culprit and reuniting the students of Zachary Taylor Middle School with some long, lost friends.