"After finishing school, Kovacs took a job as a garment worker in a dress shop; it was here he acquired the fabric that he later wore as Rorschach. The fabric, a new material created by Dr. Manhattan, contains heat-sensitive liquids between layers of latex to create black-on-white shifting color. Kovacs recovered the material from a rejected dress that had been a special order by a young woman with an Italian name. Two years later, Kitty Genovese was murdered, and when Kovacs read about the unresponsiveness of her neighbors, he became disgusted not only with crime but the underlying selfishness inherent in all people. Inspired by Genovese's fate (he later told his prison psychiatrist "Woman who ordered dress. Kitty Genovese. I'm sure that was the woman's name."), he fashioned a mask from the dress's fabric and began fighting crime as the vigilante Rorschach."