J.R. "Bob" Dobbs

J. R. "Bob" Dobbs is the figurehead of the Church of the SubGenius. His image is derived from a piece of 1950s clip art. According to SubGenius dogma, "Bob" was a drilling equipment salesman who, in 1953, saw a vision of God (JHVH-1 according to Church scriptures) on a television set he had built himself. The vision inspired him to write the "PreScriptures" (as described in the Book of the SubGenius) and found the Church. The theology holds that "Bob" is the greatest salesman who ever lived, and has cheated death a number of times. He is also revered for his great follies and believed to be a savior of "Slack". He was assassinated in San Francisco in 1984, though the Church claims that he has come back from the dead several times since then.

The quotation marks in "Bob's" name are always included when spelling his name, according to the Church. In iconography, they may also be placed around images of "Bob's" head, framing his head in the same way that the letters in the word "Bob" are framed, and acting as a sort of alternate halo.

According to Revelation X; The "Bob" Apocryphon, "Bob" was born in Dallas, Texas, to Xinucha-Chi-Xan M. Dobbs (a pharmacist) and Jane McBride Dobbs. At an early age, he possessed a talent for making large amounts of money by playing the stock market over the telephone. He married his wife Connie in Las Vegas in 1955 and worked as a photographer's model while inventing and patenting novelty gag items. In 1957, he worked weekends doing Evangelical Christian preaching "strictly for the money".

Robert Anton Wilson's short story "The Horror on Howth Hill" involves a conversation between Dobbs and the mad scientist De Selby.

Constance "Connie" Marsh Dobbs, the wife of "Bob", has become as legendary in SubGenius circles as "Bob" himself. Although "Bob" has been married to other women, spirits, deities, and inanimate objects, Connie is described in the SubGenius documentary Arise! as "his first, and still his primary wife." Connie is the patron of SubGenius women, and she is seen as a vision of true liberation for women. She refuses to submit to anyone (especially "Bob"), and she is just as free-wheeling and promiscuous as her husband, although she has a more level head on her shoulders when it comes to domestic issues.

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