Code Golf - Banner Generation

Question

When thanking someone, you don't want to just send them an e-mail saying "Thanks!", you want to have something FLASHY:

Input: THANKS!!
Output:
TTT H H AAA N N K K SSS !!! !!! 
 T  H H A A NNN K K S   !!! !!! 
 T  HHH AAA NNN KK  SSS !!! !!! 
 T  H H A A N N K K   S            
 T  H H A A N N K K SSS !!! !!! 

Write a program to generate a banner. You only have to generate upper-case A-Z along with spaces and exclamation points (what is a banner without an exclamation point?). All characters are made up of a 3x5 grid of the same character (so the S is a 3x5 grid made of S). All output should be on one row (so no newlines). Here are all the letters you need:

Input: ABCDEFGHIJKL
Output:
AAA BBB CCC DD  EEE FFF GGG H H III JJJ K K L
A A B B C   D D E   F   G   H H  I    J K K L
AAA BBB C   D D EE  FF  G G HHH  I    J KK  L
A A B B C   D D E   F   G G H H  I  J J K K L
A A BBB CCC DD  EEE F   GGG H H III JJJ K K LLL

Input: MNOPQRSTUVWX
Output:
M M N N OOO PPP QQQ RR  SSS TTT U U V V W W X X
MMM NNN O O P P Q Q R R S    T  U U V V W W  X
M M NNN O O PPP Q Q RR  SSS  T  U U V V WWW  X
M M N N O O P   QQQ R R   S  T  U U V V WWW  X
M M N N OOO P   QQQ R R SSS  T  UUU  V  WWW X X

Input: YZ!
Output:
Y Y ZZZ !!!
Y Y   Z !!!
YYY  Z  !!!
  Y Z
YYY ZZZ !!!

The winner is the shortest source code, as counted by the number of bytes it takes to store the file in utf-8 encoding. Source code should read input from stdin, output to stdout. You can assume input will only contain [A-Z! ]. If you insult the user on incorrect input, you get a 10 character discount =P.

I was going to require these exact 28 characters, but to make it more interesting, you can choose how you want them to look - whatever makes your code shorter! To prove that your letters do look like normal letters, show the output of the last three runs.

---

Shortest codes so far, in characters (utf8 encoding if non-ASCII present):

133 J

205 Python

209 Ruby

313 Haskell

345 C89

382 F#

Answer 1

Python, 250 224 chars

s=raw_input()
for i in range(5):
    for c in s:
        print''.join((' ',c)[int('2zj93fqzj6hsh2bc8i2b1ycncj5yc2v9i0m16dz91gcizj18blbw6wt0p3qqh8svchwc5onna2808of',36)>>((ord(c)-65 if c>'@'else 26)*15+i*3+j)&1]for j in[0,1,2]),
    print

Notes:

• relies on 2.x print statement considerably;
• supports spaces.

Running (I changed appearance of a few letters, for aestetic reasons only ;):

$ echo ABCDEFGHIJKL | python code-golf.py
AAA BBB CCC DD  EEE FFF GGG H H III JJJ K K L   
A A B B C   D D E   F   G   H H  I    J K K L   
AAA BBB C   D D EEE FFF G   HHH  I    J KK  L   
A A B B C   D D E   F   G G H H  I  J J K K L   
A A BBB CCC DD  EEE F   GGG H H III JJJ K K LLL 

$ echo MNOPQRSTUVWX | python code-golf.py
M M N N OOO PPP QQQ RR  SSS TTT U U V V W W X X 
MMM NNN O O P P Q Q R R S    T  U U V V W W X X 
M M NNN O O PPP Q Q RR  SSS  T  U U V V WWW  X  
M M N N O O P   QQQ R R   S  T  U U V V WWW X X 
M M N N OOO P   QQQ R R SSS  T  UUU  V  W W X X 

$ echo YZ\! | python code-golf.py
Y Y ZZZ !!! 
Y Y   Z !!! 
YYY  Z  !!! 
  Y Z       
YYY ZZZ !!! 

There are trailing spaces.

Answer 2

Python, 340 characters

d=dict((i,[23535,31727,29263,15211,29391,4815,31567,23533,29847,31527,23277,29257,23421,23549,31599,5103,32623,23275,31183,9367,31597,11117,32749,21653,31213,29351][i-65])for i in range(65,91))
d[33]=29183
d[32]=0
s=raw_input()
for l in range(5):
 p=""
 for c in s:
  for n in range(3):
   if d[ord(c)]&2**(3*l+n):p+=c
   else:p+=" "
  p+=" "
 print p

sample output

>>> 
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ !
aaa bbb ccc dd  eee fff ggg h h iii jjj k k l   m m n n ooo ppp qqq rr  sss ttt u u v v w w x x y y zzz     !!! 
a a b b c   d d e   f   g   h h  i    j k k l   mmm nnn o o p p q q r r s    t  u u v v w w  x  y y   z     !!! 
aaa bbb c   d d ee  ff  g g hhh  i    j kk  l   m m nnn o o ppp q q rr  sss  t  u u v v www  x  yyy  z      !!! 
a a b b c   d d e   f   g g h h  i  j j k k l   m m n n o o p   qqq r r   s  t  u u v v www  x    y z           
a a bbb ccc dd  eee f   ggg h h iii jjj k k lll m m n n ooo p   qqq r r sss  t  uuu  v  www x x yyy zzz     !!! 
>>> 

not too great, but it was fun writing it

edit whoops, I made the input be lowercase. fixed now, saved me one character too :)