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Cops & Crooks is our mini-comic about cops & crooks.  Think Sin City meets The Spirit.
story & words - Brian John Mitchell
artwork - Jason Young & Eric Shonborn
read a PDF of Cops & Crooks | read a CBZ of Cops & Crooks

Reviews:
Cops & Crooks #1
Brian has this listed as a #1, but in this case I don’t get it.  I suppose, if I squint my eyes just right, this could be the perfect beginning of a series.  Or it could be the perfect example of a self-contained comic.  Ah, who cares?  He has a half dozen or so other series that he’s juggling, so either way works for me.  This is the story of, well, cops and crooks.  This has to be close to the shortest flip book around, as half of it deals with a cop and the other half deals with a man who wants to kill all cops and destroy the system.  The cop had a rough but decent life, as his father (also a cop) was killed when he was four years old, but he was raised by a bunch of different cops on the force, with them taking him on their family vacations and generally doing all the things that a father should do.  The other guy had a completely different experience, as his father was taken away by cops before he was even born, so he has, quite naturally, hated them ever since.  There’s also the distinct contrast of the artwork, as Jason Young (I’m guessing the Veggie Dog Saturn Jason Young?) has a clean line with everything seeming to be sweetness and light, while on the Crooks half Eric Shonborn perfectly captures some scratchy (but still intricate) rage.  Like I said, this could go either way in terms of it being a series.  I could see them both eventually crashing into each other, or this just being fine all by itself as a commentary of the intrinsic nature of cops and crooks.  Either way, as always, I’m on board, and you should be too.
~ Kevin Bramer, Optical Sloth

In the “Cops” half of this affair, the uneven line of Jason Young is full of raw energy. He packs rich sets into each page/panel. This is one of the Silber Media efforts that relies on a scroll at the bottom of each page to relay text, which does get too predictable and staccato for me. What this half might lack visually, writer Brian John Mitchell makes up for in story content. It’s about a young man living in the shadow of his slain police officer father, with very compelling lines like “…so people can sleep with American Dreams.” As you flip it around and digest the “Crooks” half of the book, we find the same writer and artist Eric Shonborn telling a mirror image tale, reminding us that a person’s mindset depends largely on their POV and accumulated experiences. Shonborn’s art is full of fine detail and tiny cross-hatching. It reminds me of early Whilce Portacio work and lends an energetic sense of danger to the story. The shadowy eyes call to mind Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil. By the end though, the art begins to feel rushed and more simplistic, as if the artist was working against a hard deadline. It lacks the precision and intricacy of the first half of the story. Despite not being able to sustain that energy all the way to the finish line, overall it’s another interesting little $1 gem from Silber Media. Grade A-.
~ Justin Giampaoli, Poopsheet Foundation

Cops & Crooks #1 is a super short flip comic by Silber Media that contains two different stories. "Cops" is a story about a boy whose father was a police officer and who died in the line of duty and because of this, gained a lot of stand-in dads.
"Crooks" is about a guy whose father was killed by the police and therefore hates all cops because they kill dads. The "Crooks" side goes a little bit astray, where the main characters seems to want freedom from the police state, but instead seems to confuse it with the idea of wanting to destroy "America" in addition to killing cops.
It is a miniature comic book, about 1 1/2 inches by 1 inch and is in black and white. It has the same author for both sides and two different artists whose styles match how the two different stories are told. This goes back to prove the independent comics can be all sorts of different from the mainstream.
~ Karen Maeda, Sequential Tart

Finally we come to the flip-book COPS AND CROOKS #1, drawn on the Cops side by Jason Young and on the Crooks side by Eric Shonborn. The two stories both feature young boys for whom the police radically changed their lives. In one, the child’s father was a cop shot and killed by a crook and finds himself raised within the policing community; on the other side we meet a boy who lost his crook father as a child because he was arrested by the law and sent to prison. He responds to the loss of his father in an entirely different manner. Mitchell’s work here is solid; he does well in showing the dichotomy of how the police can be a force for good and yet also can use that good to caused harm. Should be interesting to see where he takes this book in future issues.
~ Marc Mason, Comics Waiting Room

Another series that has potential is Cops & Crooks, which takes the interesting approach of splitting its story into two halves, presented as a flip-book and illustrated by two different artists, Jason Young and Eric Shonborn.  The idea here seems to be to present two equal-and-opposite protagonists who follow their respective fathers into careers of crime-fighting and cop-killing, destined to meet at some point in the future.  This first issue is dedicated entirely to setup, and reading the two halves back to back seems a bit repetitive, since they are designed to mirror each other, but this could certainly turn into something interesting, depending on how intricate Mitchell is planning to get with his structure.
~ Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues

"Cops & Crooks" #1 is also written by Mitchell, but features Jason Young and Eric Shonborn on art. It's a flip book that tells a tale from two very different perspectives. On one side is a young boy who grows up to become like his dad, after his fatcher was killed in the line of duty. The boy was raised aorund the foce, and grew up with an idealisitc view of protecting and serving. On the other side is a boy who gre up to be a criminal, as his father was killed by the police when he was a child. Overall it's a simple story, but the contrasting art styles of Young and Shonborn helps emphasize the differences in the experiences of the two boys, even though they are connected by a similar event.
~ Brian LeTendre, Secret Identity Podcast