J. R. "Bob" Dobbs is the pipe-smoking figurehead of the Church of the SubGenius. His image is derived from a piece of 1950s clip-art. According to SubGenius dogma, "Bob" was an aluminum-siding salesman in the 1950s who saw a vision of God 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. "Bob" has been credited by Church members as being the greatest salesman who ever lived, and he has apparently cheated death itself a number of times. He was assassinated in San Francisco in 1984, though the Church states that he has come back from the dead several times since then.