A whale of a convergence effort!

Pilot artist John Earle set a new standard for online, interactive graphics with his illustrations for "Whales -- A ton of mystery stranded on the beach", which accompanied Diane Tennant's seven-part series "Secrets of the Dead."

John altered and added to illustrations he had produced for print so that the drawings could be used in an interative online piece that included a virtual whale necropsy (bloodless!), an interactive map of ship strikes in the region, a demonstration of a whale's use of echolocation to "see" with sound and a multiple-choice quiz on whale lore. The final product benefitted from some brilliant art direction by DME Deborah Withey.

Thousands of online readers have interacted with the online piece, enjoying the sights and sounds and learning a little something about whales at the same time.

Let's do this kind of thing more often. Interactive features like this one put our journalism in places it has never gone before.