Josh Hickman was born in Washington, D.C. and reared in various parts of Texas. Raised on a heady combination of Three Stooges shorts, Mad magazine, Edgar Allan Poe stories, Monty Python's Flying Circus, old blues music, and low-budget sci-fi and horror pictures (seemingly from the life of someone much older), tender Hickman reveled in a veritable cornucopia of limited influences.

Showing a talent for art at a young age, he attended the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts where he studied drawing, painting, and sculpture. Earning a degree in film via the University of Texas at Austin’s screenwriting program, Mr. Hickman went on to work in such varying occupations as filmmaker, musician, artist, journalist, and (briefly) private investigator.