First Appearance: Private Eye #1 (January 1951).
Appearances: Private Eye #1-5, Rocky Jorden, Private Eye #6-8.
Years Active: 1950s.

Rocky Jorden was a private investigator, although the glass on his office door describes him as a "confidential detective." He's a two-fisted Mike Hammer-style p.i., red-haired, two-fisted, full of risque banter and (of course) very tough. (Typical dialogue: "Things began to happen fast! Shots went off and I felt a searing pain in my left arm! Vaguely, I saw the punk collapse with a death rattle in his throat.") No origin was ever given for him, although with this sort of character none is really needed. He had a very loyal secretary, Lisa Brown; Rocky had saved from her "coked-up drummer" boyfriend in Private Eye #2. He and Lisa are romantically involved, and obviously fond of each other. Rocky shows more obvious affection for Lisa than Marlowe (for one) ever did for any of the women Raymond Chandler threw at him; in one story Rocky feeds Lisa ("Liza," in some stories) breakfast in bed.

Rocky is a private investigator in the classical mode; he has his code of honor and conduct, which he sticks to without fail, but he's willing to risk himself to help the less fortunate and will do whatever it takes to win a case and help the innocent. In one story he risks his life to help an ailing woman. Her husband has disappeared and she wants Rocky to find him, but what she doesn't know, and Rocky does, is that he's in jail on a murder charge, and is covering for a local gangster, who is paying for the wife's operation in exchange for the husband covering for the gangster. Rocky does the necessary beatings-up and shootings and jumpings-across-rooftops ("Tarzan had nothing on me!") and sees that the husband is freed and the gangster punished.  In another story Rocky helps free a woman from the electric chair with only minutes to go, just because "I hate to see a dame cry!" Interestingly, he's willing to work for criminals, for the right price, something other classical p.i.s don't do; in one story he allows himself to be hired out to a gangster boss for a grand retainer. The boss turns out to have a split personality brought on by a blow to the head, and is killing off his own gang

Rocky, like most traditional p.i.s, is a cunning detective and good with his fists,although he also knows "ju-jitsu." He's also quite willing to hit women, if he has to.

Note: Rocky Jorden may have been modelled on the semi-popular tv show Rocky King, Inside Detective.