Why exactly do you need the script self contained? There was just a discussion today about arbitrary requirements.

Zip files, Self-Extracting Zip files and install programs have been standards for years why would you want perl to do something (one of the few things) that it is not particularly good at (e.g. storing binary files), when you have many methods that are good at it.

If you feel you must do this, I would personally use the __DATA__ filehandle. I've never used it before to store images, but it might work

UPDATE:Apparently I was a little late to the punch with __DATA__ suggestion... but I also found another node about using Image __DATA__

grep

grep> cd /pub grep> more beer