"looking" is a actually a present participle; this form functions as a part of a compound verb used in forming continuous tenses, as a noun, and as an adjective.
This thread is way off the front page so maybe you won't see this but I thought you might find it interesting.
'look', when not part of any phrasal verb ('look at', 'look for'), is actually a copula in English. A copula is a linking verb, the paradigmatic example being 'to be', that can occur in the pattern (subject) (copula) (adjective).
That's what is happening in sentences like
"The man (subj) looks nice (adj.)"
Whereas with any noncopulative verb we need an adverb
"The man ran quickly.", "The stocks fell rapidly.", etc.
What's interesting is that if you look at the list of English copulae above, you'll notice that many of them ('smell', 'sound', 'feel', 'taste', and 'seem') are capable of the same kind of inversion as 'look' in their participle forms. So...
"The chicken tasted funny." and "The chicken is funny tasting."
"This song sounds sad." and "This song is sad sounding."
It's a little more awkward to think of examples with 'seem', which is curious since it's the only one of those six copulae mentioned that isn't sensory in meaning.
TL;DR: 'looking' is definitely not a standard adjectival participle, since it can't function as an adjective on it's own, but instead needs to follow another adjective. Another excellent example of how words do not conform neatly to part of speech categories.
Among other things.
"looking" is a actually a present participle; this form functions as a part of a compound verb used in forming continuous tenses, as a noun, and as an adjective.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/present_participle