In magazine publishing, a copy-editor’s voice is invisible. Yet more than any other member of the team, Tom Ridgway, who died earlier this year, shaped the very meaning of TANK, through a myriad of acerbic comments, edits and remarks, bleeding through the rough text in bright red track changes. Tom joined TANK at its fifth anniversary in 2003, an issue appositely titled “literate”, limited editions of which contained no images; in their place there was merely a short line of text. Infamously, the night before the deadline, the team decided to rewrite all the captions, in search of just the right tone for each. It’s a story Tom would tell often, thrilling at the chaotic joy of magazine-making, of trying to capture in each issue an elusive tone of voice. He was shockingly good at his job, and profoundly unwilling to indulge writers, or suffer fools. Working with him was an exercise in humility, and a continuous education. In this issue of TANK, which we dedicate to him, we feel his absence more than ever. .