How to prevent the character '\' from escaping ES6 template strings?

Try using String.raw:

const name = String.raw`
  ____                 _ 
 |  _ \               (_)
 | |_) | ___ _ __ __ _ _ 
 |  _ < / _ | '__/ _' | |
 | |_) |  __| | | (_| | |
 |____/ \___|_|  \__, |_|
                  __/ |  
                 |___/   
`

If you want to have a literal backslash in your template string, you will need to escape it:

let myVar = "test";
let myString = `My var: \\${myVar}`; // "My var: \test"