Off-color: The Hartford Courant (registration required) reports the former owner of Eastern Color Printing has admitted to failing to stop top executives from playing financial shell games in an attempt to save the company from bankruptcy in 2002. Eastern Color Printing in 1933 published Funnies on Parade, which many consider the nation's first comic book.

Fleet Bank lost $2.2 million in the shell-game scheme, and the financial officer who concocted it faces up to five years in prison. A. Robert Palmer, Eastern Color Printing's former chief executive officer and owner, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of misprision of a felony -- concealing knowledge of a felony. He could face up to three years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.