Essential Reading

Hey guys, been a while. I've got a friend who is an anime/manga nerd but she wants to get into comics now. She's curious where to begin (Of all sorts but also wants to badly know more about Spiderman). I already know which story arcs I'm going to recommend but I was wondering what you guys thought in terms of essential comic book material Marvel and DC. And... Should I tell her to avoid New 52 altogether? lol Anyways, comment below and let me know dammit!

First, the comic book subforum is this way.

It depends on what she's interested in. There's your run of the mill superhero books (Avengers, Superman, JLA, etc), your more "street-level" books (Spiderman, Batman, etc), the darker stuff (Punisher, etc), the indie books, the more mainstream indie-type books (Vertigo; Sandman, Lucifer, Watchmen, etc)...

There's a thousand genres to go here. Need a little more direction to point you in the right direction.

Edit: There's already a similar thread made here, but that's more a list of quality titles/runs rather than good places to start from scratch.