BATMAN’s TY TEMPLETON, Brother of the Sausage

Comic conventions look to be on hiatus for a bit, but we can keep part of the flavor going with great stories of cons past. If you know of a cool story, let us know.

Batman: The Adventures Continue Artist Ty Templeton was on a tour of Europe with a group of fellow Batman artists in the 1990s when he received a curious honor. We’ll let Ty take it from here…
 

A bunch of Batman artists were on a tour through about six cities in Europe. Me, Scott Hampton, Neal Adams, and for some stops on the tour, Tim Sale. We went to Paris, Brussels, all over. They’d take us to a book store, we’d do signings, the usual thing.

But on one stop on the trip, some organizers took us from our hotel very suddenly. They wouldn’t tell us where we were going, but wherever it was going to be, they made it sound very important. They would up parking us in back of this fairly sizable building, and taking us through a back door. We would up walking through a kitchen, which seemed odd, and…they still wouldn’t tell us where we were.

We wound up on a stage in front of hundreds and hundreds of people and they they’re announcing us to this audience and…I’m from Canada, so I speak a little French, and I was trying my best to translate for Neal and Scott, who don’t speak a word of French. It was ‘Voule le voule le voo,’ ‘Guys, they’re saying we are these most famous international cartoonists…’ More voule le voule le voo… ‘Something about great achievement in art?’ More French, more French, ‘And we’re being inducted into…The Brotherhood of the Sausage?’

And…as we’re all looking at each other in puzzlement and I’m wondering if I translated that right, sure enough…we’re all handed a plate of sausages! We’re encouraged to take a bite out of one of the sausages, and…the audience bursts into this wild applause! And then they came out with these gigantic medallions, bigger than Olympic medals, and they put these medallions around our necks and there’s more applause, and…we’re just led out the back, quick as we were brought in, and that was that. That was it. We were all put in a car, looking at each other wondering what being sausage brothers meant.

So they next day, I’m out with Neal, and we passed by a pharmacy. I had the sniffles on this trip, so I told Neal I was going to go in and get some medicine some Dristan or whatever, and some tissues. So we go in, and when I go to the counter to pay for my stuff, the guy won’t let me pay. He says, ‘You are brothers of the sausage! I saw you on television last night! I cannot make you pay.’ This blew our minds, but he gestured toward the morning papers they had there, and sure enough, there we were, page 1, but below the fold because we hadn’t started a war or anything. Pictures of us getting sausages and medallions presented to us.

We found out later the guy presenting us with the medallions and sausages was the Minister of Culture for France. My wife looked it up after we got home, and this was a pretty big award that’s given out to great film directors, artists, authors. It’s an elite body of people who get this award, plus now, three schmucks from North America who draw Batman. And Jerry Lewis is a member, because of course he would be.

But no one explained it to us. Not before, nor after. The only reason I had any idea what was going on is that I speak a little bit of French.

I still have my medallion. Huge, weighty thing. I hope Neal and Scott still have theirs, too.

Sure enough, the ‘Compagnons du boitchu,’ or ‘Brothers of the sausage cutter,’ have existed since 1977. It’s a well-respected tradition in the city of Montbeliard, France, and honorary members are inducted at special ceremonies. Including three men from North America who draw Batman.

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