As he got older, his influences included Jim Baikie, Simon Bisley, Jamie Hewlett, Duncan Fegredo, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, and Jaime Hernandez.

[3] Phillips began his career in 1980 in British girls' comic magazines such as Bunty, Judy and Nikki while still at school.

[3] After graduating art college (Lowestoft Polytechnic)[3] in 1988 he started working with John Smith on New Statesmen and Straitgate, as well as Pat Mills on Third World War, both at Crisis.

[3] He returned to the American comic book industry in 2000 when he inked Scene of the Crime written by Ed Brubaker, a writer he would collaborate with a number of times over the following years.

In 2001, Phillips and John Bolton illustrated a three-issue miniseries called User, written by Devin Grayson, and published by DC's Vertigo imprint.

With Guinness officials on hand to monitor their progress, writer Mark Millar began work at 9 a.m. scripting a 20-page black and white Superior comic book, with Phillips and the other artists — including Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely, John Romita Jr., Jock,[11] Doug Braithwaite, Ian Churchill, Olivier Coipel, Duncan Fegredo, Simon Furman, David Lafuente, John McCrea, and Liam Sharp[12] — all drawing a panel each, appearing on stage throughout the day to work on the pencils, inks, and lettering, with regular Superior artist Leinil Yu creating the book's front cover.

The book was completed in 11 hours, 19 minutes, and 38 seconds, and was published through Icon on 23 November 2011, with all royalties being donated to Yorkhill Children's Foundation.