The Church of the SubGenius is a religious group satirizing religion, conspiracy theories, UFOs, and popular culture. Originally based in Dallas, Texas, the Church of the SubGenius gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s subculture and maintains an active presence on the Internet. Publicly accessible cited figures from 1988 indicated a membership of 3500 at that time and "more than 5000" by 1990.
"Bob"
Main article: J. R. "Bob" Dobbs The central figurehead and symbol of the Church is the smiling, pipe-smoking face of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, an image based on 1950s styled clip art, and bearing a striking resemblance to 50s comic strip character Mark Trail. (In the SubGenius film 'Arise', "Bob" is described at one point, quite aptly, as "A comicbook character who communicates with space aliens and worships money".) "Bob" was considered to be the best salesman of all time. The Church claims that "Bob" (the quotes are included when spelling his name, supposedly as a symbolic halo around his name) founded the Church after he saw a vision of JHVH-1 (or "Jehovah-1") on his homemade TV. "Bob" was killed in San Francisco in 1984 (though former Church members state this was just a publicity stunt). Since that time, he has been killed and subsequently returned from the dead many times, though the Church denies any similarity between this claim and the Biblical account of Jesus's resurrection. The Church guards the trademark and copyright on "Bob's" image, though his face has been used by many artistic figures, showing up on such places as albums by the rock band Sublime and George Clinton; the movie The Wizard of Speed and Time by Mike Jittlov; in the graphical character set of the Atari ST computers; printed on CDs for Slackware Linux (prior to Version 3); on the set of Pee-wee's Playhouse, in British comic 2000AD, inside the strip Robo-Hunter, and in Devo's video for the song "Love Without Anger". "Bob" made an appearance in the comic The Badger, his form having been taken by a demon who commented at one point "Do? I'm going to beat you to death with this pipe." He also made a brief appearance in Marvel Comics' Slapstick as a coffee store clerk. The Dobbs Icon. The Church has recently adopted a new symbol called the "Dobbs Icon" (Also known as the sacred ikon), which is a stylized cross with three bars and a pipe, placed in a pattern that matches the eyes, nose, mouth, and pipe of "Bob"'s image. This symbol resembles the patriarchal cross as it is possibly a parody. Nothing is more central to "Bob" than his pipe, which is said to be filled with the mysterious substance known as habafropzipulops or "frop," (not a common drug) which may contain either mystical, hallucinogenic, or Divine powers. The pipe may also allude to surrealist painter Rene Magritte's famous work, The Treachery of Images, which features an image of a pipe and the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). According to the church, the image of "Bob" and his pipe are often seen on random objects, possibly to herald things to come or as an omen, or possibly for no reason at all. The number 13,013 (usually seen as "13013") is the Number of "Bob", or the Mark of Dobbs. In its January 1, 2000 issue, a Time magazine internet-based poll named J.R. "Bob" Dobbs the #1 "Phoney Or Fraud" of the 20th century.