Keywords humor failure in translating humor translation strategies Technically translating humor is a big challenge for a translator. This is due to three reasons. Firstly humor is intended to produce funny effect which is quite difficult to render. Secondly although the translators understand the humor they may not be able to bring the funny effect to the target text. Thirdly humor and fun are subjective. Other people may consider a joke is funny but others do not. The case is the humor novel The Diary of a Wimpy kid. This is a popular humor graphic novel that the translator creatively combines the humorous story with the amusing graphic cartoon. This novel gains success as well as its Indonesian translated version Diary Si Bocah Tengil. Despite its success some readers argue the intended funny effect is well presented. This study aims at pointing at the failure in the translation of humor novel as well as suggesting strategy for better translation. The researcher takes the first volume of the translated series of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid as the object of this study. The data are analyzed qualitatively. The data found are 56 items covering the failure in the three broad categories of humor linguistic humor (4 data) cultural humor (25 data) and universal humor (27 data). Based on the analysis four points can be concluded. Firstly on the linguistic humor the translator fails to transfers its aesthetical aspects that make the humor live up. Secondly in the cultural humor the translator does not provide the adequate cultural background information so that the readers will understand the humor and does not reveal the atmosphere and the nuances of the story in the target text. Thirdly in universal humor there are two factors that make the humor fails to deliver in target text (1) errors and inappropriateness and (2) the application of inappropriate translation strategy. Fourthly in translating the humorous cartoon the translator does not consider the special aspects of it such as space and visual. To improve the translator s work the researcher suggests the tree alternative solutions. Firstly in translating linguistic humor the researcher suggests the translator to apply the semantic translation strategy in which it requires the translator to preserve the beauty aspects of linguistic humor. Secondly to reveal the cultural elements of the humor in cultural humor the translator can used the semantic cultural equivalent translation strategy in which it preserves the nuances and atmosphere of humor. Thirdly for universal humor since this type of humor is not bound by any language features or cultural elements it is suggested that the translator apply communicative translation strategy. This strategy enables the translator to choose any words and language style that express the humorous discourse as long as the intended funny effect is delivered and can be understood by most readers.