The Phoenix comic Reviews 

Very disappointing service. I noticed a £69.99 charge on my bank which has made me go overdrawn so I contacted Phoenix to ask for a refund
Reply was sorry we can’t refund you you’ve renewed your subscription. I didn’t even know I had a subscription, and at this point I hadn’t even had any more magazines. So I will now receive magazines for 6 months that I don’t want, and am paying overdraft charges due to an unexpected charge. There was no email saying it was up for renewal, no information provided at the time of signing up about renewal, and from a comic that is for children you’d think they would have more friendly family policies, rather than a one line response and then being ignored in further emails. Dreadful service, be warned, do not buy this comic. They don’t care about their readers or loyal customers it’s a dreadful attitude to have. We have bought their comic for over three years and I feel so let down it’s ended like this.

I have been subscribing to the Phoenix for a Grandson for 3 years. He loves his comic, so I thought of subscribing for another Grandson. I entered my bank card and Grandson 2 received the initial 5/6 comics. Then they stopped. I phoned to ask the reason and was told the direct debit wouldn’t go through, which couldn’t be true as it is the same card that they take for Grandson I. Phoenix wanted me to apply again but in the month since first applying they increased the charge from £34.99 to £36.99. It might only be £8.00, but it was their poor management that messed it up. I won’t be subscribing for Grandson 2 and I shall be watching to see if they take from my account for a subscription that didn’t materialise.
Because the Phoenix also managed to squeeze in an extra quarter in 2025 making it 5 debits in the year I have emailed them. I am looking forward to having the 5th quarter refunded, and not being charged for a non existent subscription.

We initially signed up for the six-issue trial before committing to a longer subscription. Very quickly, it became clear that The Phoenix was a hit. My seven-year-old daughter absolutely loves receiving her weekly magazine, and it has become something she looks forward to.

I’ll admit that I read it too, and I’m consistently impressed by the artistry, humour and creativity that goes into every issue. The variety of stories and illustration styles is outstanding, and it’s clear how much care and talent is involved in bringing the magazine together each week.

We were originally drawn to The Phoenix because my daughter adores the books of Neill Cameron, Jamie Smart and Jim Smith. Her own artwork is heavily influenced by their styles, and we wanted to encourage her creativity, expose her to more artists and help build her confidence with reading. We hadn’t found any other magazine or comic that could do all of that so successfully.

My only very slight piece of feedback for improvement would be regarding the Phoenix shop. We ordered a Donut Squad T-shirt along with a pre-order of the new book, and while we were very happy to support the magazine, we did feel the delivery experience could have been a little more polished. The delivery was slightly delayed, and the T-shirt itself was an unbranded, fairly basic item that arrived unpackaged and loosely placed in the envelope. Given the delivery cost and overall price, we had expected something a little more thoughtful, especially when gifting for Christmas.

That said, this is a very minor point in what has otherwise been an extremely positive experience. The Phoenix has exceeded our expectations, and we’re delighted to be continuing our subscription.

My 10 year old son absolutely loves these comics. We are in Ireland so we’re not able to avail of the initial 6 copies trial but on the basis of him loving the books we went straight in. We had a small hiccup at the start with our address and delivery of the first comic took three weeks but since then everything has been perfect and it has arrived every week without fail - the highlight of my kid’s week - he devours it

We’ve subscribed to this for my 7 year old, its arrived and its incredibly dark and violent. This is not a fun Dennis the Menace style comic. Pretty much every cartoon contains really dark violence, murder, human sacrifice - human sacrifice, purposeful poisoning resulting in death. Not what we were expecting at all!

Order for weekly comic failed but charge was still applied to my credit card. So did some checking and the website recorded against my card does not exist. Still trying to remove the charge. Be very wary of giving details to this group, something does not add up.

After only receiving 3 copies for the ‘6 issues for £1’ I have had my subscription cancelled for querying why I was charged for the full subscription price.
Customer service is appalling, and my emails have barely been answered at all never them taking action that I didn’t ask for.

Never had problems like this with a company before.

I really wish I had checked with trustpilot BEFORE signing up. Absolute scam!
I wanted to cancel my order and they have refused. I emailed several times and they wouldn’t acknowledge the 14 cooling off period as it had already been processed! Isn’t that what the cooling off is for!

Daughter lost interest so emailed to cancel the subscription, received a confirmation email to acknowledge the subscription cancellation. 3 months later…they take money out of my account again! And it’s been set up as a direct debit! Not happy at all and wish I had read reviews before subscribing!

Decided to leave a review because its contrary to most of the others on here.

I ordered following the advert for '6 issues for £1'. My son read the first couple of issues but after this, he wasn't really bothered about reading them and he was disinterested in them.

So I decided to cancel. If you go to "Your Account" and then click "View Order" then it gives payment details there. For me, it said the next payment date was February 28th and this was before the 6 trial issues were due (the 6th issue would be due on 7th March).

I wish you could cancel online but instead, you have to call them. I feel like this is probably so they can try to persuade you to stay...

However, for me, it was an easy phone call. I just said my son was disinterested in the comic so I'd to cancel and he did it. He didn't try to persuade me to keep the subscription. It was a 2min call. I refreshed the above webpage immediately after the call and it no longer says next payment due on 28th Feb, so I'm happy that its been handled.

Same as said by others not even received 6 issues and then was billed. Im going to get all comics they havent sent

Really quite shocked by these guys - in December they offered 6 issues for £1, and a quarterly subscription of £35 would be taken thereafter. I had assumed this was a taster offer allowing us time to decide whether we liked the magazine, and so I thought any further payments would reasonably be taken after 6 weeks of the presumably weekly magazine. I planned to cancel around the third week of January, as we received the first issue just before Christmas, which my child was disinterested in, then last week we received two copies on one day, and another one today, only around three weeks after the first issue. These have remained unopened due to their intensity. Lo and behold Phoenix have just charged me the full subscription fee today, having rushed out the taster issues to presumably avoid the risk of direct debit cancellation before they'd had a chance to get any real money out of me but having not actually fulfilled their offer of six issues. I have to question why they would feel the need to do things this way if they were indeed confident in the appeal of the magazine? This feels incredibly exploitative, and given the fact I've seen it advertised in schools, I'm honestly a bit shocked at their unscrupulous behaviour. If this is a reputable company, then why behave in this way?

A brilliant comic I’d just say one thing about it the drawings are a bit hard!

I took out a trial for my grandson but it was not to his liking. I contacted them to cancel before my trial ended, but the money for another year went out of my bank. I also contaced iSubscribe who I purchased this from and they just referred me to the publisher. Publisher has not replied further. Update...
Publisher replied 2 years later!

I answered the ad from Phoenix Comics for 4 trial weekly issues for £1. This is so my grandkids can decide if they like it. However, after 1 issue, they billed me the full subscription. All my attempts to communicate with customer service have failed. Their replies make no sense and do not answer my query, or seem to understand what I am protesting. It looks as though they contract customer service to a subscriptions contractor who knows nothing about it. The company is actually called DAVID FICKLING COMICS LIMITED. However, Trustpilot do not recognise that name.