It began as a one-time, satirical column in OC Weekly, featuring the most outlandish questions and answers staff writer Gustavo Arellano could devise.

A big reader response was anticipated to the column, “Ask a Mexican,” which takes on stereotypes about Mexicans. What wasn’t expected was that people actually would send in questions they wanted answered, like “Why do Mexicans park their cars on the front lawn?” or “Does a Chihuahua really fit a nation of macho men and feisty women?”

Arellano and his boss realized they had tapped a deep well. Now, the column that started in November 2004 runs in 32 alternative newspapers. This week, the Weekly becomes the 33rd.

The column is one of a handful of features we debut in this issue. “Doonesbury” is out, at least for now, because writer Gary Trudeau is on leave until mid-June. In its place, we’re running a new comic strip, a new cartoon and a crossword puzzle (more on those later).

We also have rearranged our Table of Contents page to allow for a bigger photo each week that includes details of how it was shot.

Arellano’s column is edgy and educational. Fair warning: Its take-no-prisoners approach also can be offensive; sometimes that’s how Arellano believes he best can get his point across.

When it first began, many people did not know what to make of it – was it a racist rant, a total joke, a real column?

“We were trying to be over the top,” Arellano says. “We ran it and gave no explanation.”

If he gets across nothing else to readers, Arellano says, he reiterates time and again “that this new wave of Mexican immigration is the exact same thing as when the Irish came and the Italians came. Mexicans are not going to take over. They are going to assimilate and be as American as you and I.”

Arellano is a native Californian – from Anaheim – going back four generations on his mother’s side. His father crossed the border illegally in the trunk of a Chevy (he is legal now).

“Mostly I target people who are filled with hate.”

Arellano says his column simply lays out the facts.

“I write good things about Mexican culture, but I also can be critical,” he says. “Mostly I target people who are filled with hate.”

He says there is plenty of punditry on the topic, so his satirical voice offers a different take.

“Especially in the past few years, it’s usually people yelling at each other or people talking in an echo chamber,” says Arellano, who holds a bachelor’s degree in film studies from Chapman University in Orange and a master’s in Latin American studies from UCLA.

“The truth is somewhere in between… With satire, it is not straight comedy; I try to be as outrageous as possible with the issue at hand… I spark more dialogue with my approach. If I had to model myself after anyone, it would be Jonathan Swift or H.L. Mencken.”

Arellano acknowledges that many people don’t know what to make of the column when they first read it, and that it takes about a month for them to get used to it. It is tolerated, then accepted, then popular, he says, adding that even people who don’t agree say they learn something from the column.

“My boast is I will answer any and all, no matter how racist,” he says. “It gives me the opportunity to debunk the stereotype, to teach.”

He says he sometimes is surprised at where his column is popular – Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Nashville, Tenn., for example. And he swears he has no least-favorite letter.

“Naw, I am still flattered people took the time out of their day to write,” he says. “I get some long, angry, [capital letter]-filled e-mails. They spend so much energy on me, how can I not feel gratitude?”

The appreciation for the column and the number of alternative newspapers that run it, Arellano says, “is almost a fairy tale.”

Elsewhere in this issue, you will find the satiric comic strip “Tom the Dancing Bug” by Ruben Bolling. No one is exempt from Bolling’s sharp pen – his strip hits on society’s foibles and covers figures from sports, government and the entertainment world. We think you will find his work hard to resist.

Adding to the commentary, we also have picked up the work of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1999 and syndicated nationally, Rogers says his aim is to provoke. “If I beat someone over the head with an opinion, all they walk away with is a sore head. If I can make them laugh, I know I’ve reached them,” he says in his bio.

Finally, we offer another way to tease and intrigue your brain with “Jonesin’,” a crossword puzzle with attitude. Created by Matt Jones, the puzzle is designed specifically for alternative newsweeklies and features humor, politics, sports, hip music and pop-culture references, and “the occasional not-nice word,” according to the puzzle’s website.

More changes are in store in the coming weeks. Let us know what you think.