This study is concerned with viscous-gravity spreading of liquid drops on a solid surface. The effect of the initial shape on spreading is investigated. Numerical results are in good agreement with the similarity solution for both cases of axisymmetric and cylindrical drops for sufficiently long times. In addition to the results obtained for radius as a function of time, changes in the potential energy and shapes are also studied. Shapes are shown to undergo two or three phases depending on the initial shape. On the other hand, losses of potential energy are shown to be converted into viscous dissipation.