Question: How  many years did the comic strip that includes the character Joe Btfsplk run for?
Context: Striker is a fictional British comic strip and former magazine, which is created by Pete Nash and features in the British tabloid newspaper "The Sun".  The strip first appeared in The Sun on Monday November 11, 1985 and ran in the newspaper daily until August 2003, when the author decided to launch the strip as a weekly independent comic book.  However, the strip returned to the The Sun during October 2005, after the comic book had published 87 issues and suffered financial problems.  Over the four years the newspaper strip was published daily until the end of September 2009, when it transpired that Nash had served a years notice to bring the strip to a conclusion.  However, Striker returned on January 26, 2010, as a full-page comic strip in the weekly UK lads magazine Nuts, where it was published as a weekly strip until October 2010.  It subsequently went unpublished until January 7, 2013, when it started to be published in The Sun newspaper.  Over the next three years it was published seven days a week, before it was announced that Striker would no longer be published in the paper after February 13, 2016.  Later that year, it was announced that the strip would be brought back to the paper by popular demand, with matches shown live on the internet for the first time. Li'l Abner was a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA.  Written and drawn by Al Capp (1909–1979), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through November 13, 1977.  It was distributed by United Feature Syndicate.  Comic strips typically dealt with northern urban experiences before Capp introduced Li'l Abner, the first strip based in the South.  The comic strip had 60 million readers in over 900 American newspapers and 100 foreign papers in 28 countries.  Author M. Thomas Inge says Capp "had a profound influence on the way the world viewed the American South." Ikabod Bubwit (literally "Ikabod the Small Rodent", "Ikabod the Small Rat", or "Ikabod the Mouse") is one of the most noteworthy and most memorable comic book, comic strip, and cartoon characters created in the 1980s by Nonoy Marcelo, one of the foremost cartoonists in the Philippines.  Ikabod Bubwit himself is considered as the most famous mouse character created by Marcelo.  In the comic strip Ikabod, Ikabod Bubwit was the representation of the humorous illustration of the socio-political woes of ordinary Filipinos, and the comic strip itself was used at times by Marcelo in re-imagining and portraying Filipino political figures, including Ferdinand Marcos, Cory Aquino, Joseph Estrada, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.  Ikabod Bubwit was portrayed by Marcelo as an “irreverent mouse” with “funny antics” who lived in Dagalandia (literally "Mouseland" or "Ratland").  Ikabod’s hometown, Dagalandia, was described as a “recast” of “the Philippines as a nation” with “an apt mirror image for the turbulent setting of the Philippines” during the present and in the past.  The satirical comic strip about Ikabod Bubwit ran from the late 1970s through 2002. Tom Forman (May 2, 1936 – May 18, 1996) was an American comic strip cartoonist, co-creator of the classic comic strip "Motley's Crew" along with Ben Templeton.  His pre-1997 take on the comic strip involved Mike Motley's career as a blue-collar worker, sports, and his friends.  After Forman died of cancer, the storylines of the comic strip he helped create became more feminine and had "touchy-feely" parts at various points in the storyline.  They dealt with being forced to say "hi" to the in-laws under embarrassing conditions, attending various weddings, and letting out bottled emotions.  This new spin on the comic strip alienated many older male viewers and may have led to its retirement on January 1, 2000. Tony Carrillo is the creator of F Minus, an offbeat comic strip.  Carrillo started the comic strip at Arizona State University, when he was in his sophomore year.  After winning an online contest to determine the best college comic strip, Tony was awarded a deal with United Media.  His comic appears daily at Comics.com, as well as many newspapers across the country.  His website is located here:  Joe Btfsplk was a character in the satirical comic strip "Li'l Abner" by cartoonist Al Capp (1909–1979).  He is well-meaning, but is the world's worst jinx, bringing disastrous misfortune to everyone around him.  A small, dark rain cloud perpetually hovers over his head to symbolize his bad luck.  Hapless Btfsplk and his ever-present cloud became one of the most iconic images in "Li'l Abner". Ilkka Heilä, 1956 Ekenäs, is a Finnish cartoonist who lives in Kaarina.  He draws "B. Virtanen" -comic strip.  Comics by Heilä appeared as early as in the beginning of 1970s in the comic magazine "Sarjis".  However, working in a post office replaced professional self-fulfillment of artistic tendencies the nearly 20 years period, until then he created Bulls-syndicate of his comic strip B. Virtanen and took part in comic competition arranged by newspaper "Uusi Suomi" in 1989.  Thanks to this comic strip, Heilä could at last in the 1990s move to a full-time comic artist.  He got the Puupäähattu, a valued Finnish comic prize of Suomen Sarjakuvaseura (Finnish Comic Club) in year 2006. The Bullshitters: Roll Out The Gunbarrel was a spoof of "The Professionals", first broadcast in 1984 on Channel 4.  Although it was made by many people behind "The Comic Strip", it did not feature the Comic Strip logo and is not considered by some to be part of the series.  However, it "was" included in the Comic Strip DVD box set (2005), and its lead characters Bonehead and Foyle reappeared in a later Comic Strip episode, "Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown".  It was also represented as an episode of the show on "30 Years of The Comic Strip". Joe Jitsu was a British humor comic strip, published in the British comics magazine "The Beano", between 2004 and 2006.  The comic was voted into the magazine after a poll by "Beano" readers in early 2004, along with another comic strip, "Colin the Vet".  Joe narrowly defeated Colin, but both became regulars in the comic, as Joe's victory was by just 1%. Mary Worth is a newspaper comic strip, which has had a seven-decade run since it began in 1938 under the title Mary Worth's Family—a name that was later changed in 1942 in recognition of the fact that the strip came to focus more and more on the title character Mary Worth and less on the members of her extended family.  Distributed by King Features Syndicate, this pioneering soap opera-style strip had an influence on several realistically drawn continuity strips that followed.  The strip, by Allen Saunders and Dale Connor, initially appeared under the pseudonym "Dale Allen".  Ken Ernst succeeded Connor as artist in 1942, and the title was shortened.  Harvey Comics published a comic-book spinoff, "Love Stories of Mary Worth", from 1949 to 1950.  It is loosely associated with an older comic strip, Apple Mary: Mary Worth's Family, though its current syndicate denies any association no matter how loose.
Answer: 43 years